Stonewall

In 1968 the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village became the focal point for the gay rights movement after a police raid sparked a riot, pitching drag queens against armed police officers in the first example of violent protest by the gay rights movement. Stonewall is the story of the misfits and runaways riding the tide of change in a nation hiding from itself.

Amazingly the play manages to powerfully convey the desperation of the city’s gay community, yet simultaneously offers a non stop glitzy, camp and testosterone driven journey through a fabulous world of ladyboys and lipstick. The spectacle of a man in a G-string thrusting his hips to the revving of a motorbike engine causes some of the more prudish audience members to look at their shoes and twiddle their thumbs.
Whilst it might sound like a reiteration of age old gay stereotypes, Stonewall makes a serious point about the ability to be both gay and accepted by society. The play illustrates the differences between the all-singing all-dancing showgirls of the Stonewall Inn and the suited gay men who join forces with them to seek political change; both groups gradually come to see the others’ reasoning and lifestyle as the play runs towards its tragic and inevitable conclusion.

The 1960s were famously a time of black and female emancipation through the Civil Right’s movements; Stonewall argues that for homosexuals the fight was even more difficult as they sought acceptance and legal equality in their own country. As one of the main characters says: “Fuck America, we’re the real America.”