In 1977, author Larry Mitchell and artist Ned Asta came together to compose The Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions, a fantastical, surrealist guide on how to survive in "the world of men." The world of men is inhabited by the men, but there are also the faggots, the faeries, and the queens trying to survive. Mitchell's text reads with the lilting rhythm of Lewis Carrol's "Jabberwocky" but with significantly more dykes and degenerates. Asta's illustrations are lithe and fluid, with so much intricacy and dimension.
Almost 50 years later, it is still alarmingly relevant, and still finding an audience it resonates with — now on paper and on stage. TFATFBR, stylized for the play as The F*ggots and Their Fr*ends Between R*volutions, is a new stage play running at Chicago's Bramble Arts Loft from July 25 - August (tickets can be purchased online here). It guarantees to "take you on an imaginative adventure filled with laughter, dancing, puppets, gay sex, possibly illegal activity, and a run time of 90 minutes." I had the pleasure of speaking with director and producer Jack Bowes about what it took to bring this seminal text to the stage, and what the faggots learned along the way.
Courtesy of Maddie Mette (@maddiemette)
PRIDE: When did you first read TFATFBR? How did you get introduced to it?
Jack Bowes: I first discovered Faggots and Their Friends at Haymarket's Socialism Conference in Chicago, in the fall of 2022. Because it's Haymarket, there was a radical book fair, and I was drawn to the book of course because of the title, but also because of the gorgeous illustrations. I think I read it right away, and also right after I read it I texted two close friends and collaborators, Cal Kreiner and Lia Dewey, and said something like, 'OMG y'all this book is so good and it needs to be turned into a play.' And them being amazing, they said yes! And the show was born.
What about TFATFBR made you want to adapt it into a play? How did this adaptation start to take form?
I wanted to adapt the book immediately after I read it. Which is actually fairly surprising, given where my head was at at that time. I was nearly contemplating quitting theatre, which has been a passion of mine for over 20 years, and at that time for five years professionally. But I was burnt out on it, and didn't feel like our theatre industry as a whole was being responsive to our current political moment. And I don't just mean politics, I mean living in the context of a global pandemic that is also a mass disabling event. I didn't understand why companies were fighting so hard to come back to in-person theatre during a pandemic just to stage... Mary Poppins or some other generic fluff. I mean, if we're going to risk our lives and our health to gather together to make art, can we at least make it something meaningful?
Working on developing our initial adaptation of this book felt like it lit a fire in me that I hadn't felt in a while. I applied to the Haven Theatre's Guest House Project, and was accepted, which led to our initial development production in June 2023. I also applied for a grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events (DCASE), and was accepted for that as well, which enabled our full production this year. Overall, it's been a nearly two journey to create this show, and we've added many brilliant artists along the way, including our talented ensemble of actors and our brilliant design team.
Courtesy Ren Picco-Freeman (@renstudio)
This production has clearly worked hard to be as accessible as possible, with things like tiered ticket pricing, and using HEPA filters from Clean Air Club — did it add more to the experience of this show to make it both textually and functionally revolutionary? Has this experience changed how you would want to see more theatre made in the future?
Regarding accessibility: Everything I have learned from disability justice educators (shoutout to Yomi Wrong, one of my teachers) is that access is a constant practice, not a destination. To be frank, and this is not to diss our show at all, but I do think we're doing the bare minimum in terms of what theaters (and all live events) should be doing in this time. Organizers like the folks at Clean Air Club, for example, have made it so incredibly easy to access resources like air filters, that I couldn't justify not using them, if that makes sense. I always will maintain that there's more to do. If we had a bigger budget, one of the first things I would fund would be ASL and additional language access resources for our show, for example.
This book was written almost 50 years ago, and here we are still decidedly trying to survive the age of the men. What has it been like to put on this production right now at this specific moment in time? Hopeful? Enraging? Both?
What has it been like to put on this production right now at this specific moment in time... oh boy.
Between June 2023, when we first staged this production, and July 2024, there has been a marked increase in anti-LGBT and specifically anti-trans legislation passing in local governments across this country. It's all coming from the same source, mind you. We're seeing the same exact language — verbatim — in bills from Alabama to Arkansas, with the same major corporate donors sponsoring these bills. We've also witnessed a major escalation in the genocide in occupied Palestine, which we know began even before Larry Mitchell wrote this book, and is now escalating to a horrifying level, thanks to continued US taxpayer funded weapons shipments. There are seeds of Larry's time that are still rotting in our soil today. We are certainly living in the age of the Men, and they are very clear about what their priorities are.
So... what are our priorities? As we say in the play... "What's next? What are we going to do?" This play doesn't have an answer — the book doesn't either. The task laid bare for our audiences is, essentially, you need to figure this out in the context of your community. I know I have my own answer, connected to my community, my skills and passions in this lifetime. Part of my role in creating a new, liberated world is to keep telling stories like this. To continue disrupting the ways in which we have traditionally done things.
Courtesy of Maddie Mette (@maddiemette)
