To the editors:
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Allow me to describe three of the six characters who comprise intimacies: Big Red is a black street hooker who happens to be a single mother with an eight-month-old AIDS baby and a teenaged daughter. Although Big Red continues to ply her trade, she does it safely (“mostly hand jobs these days”) and supports her daughters. As she faces death, she “concentrates on forgiveness.” Rusty is a nineteen-year-old runaway, kicked out of the house by his parents, who finds himself on the streets of Hollywood, broke and addicted to drugs. He also finds out what caring for another person entails when one of the tricks he’s turned (“All he wanted to do was kiss my eyelids”) dies and leaves him abandoned once again. Phoenix is a homeless ex-con who discovers the power of love from a young gay man who convinces him to get clean and sober before he dies. AIDS proves to be the catalyst for his recovery as well as his renewed spirit; “I don’t want to die, I want to love,” he says.
Another character, Patrick, is a gay yuppie, employed by Disney Studios in Hollywood while Mary is clearly delineated as a well-spoken and gracious (albeit deeply disturbed) woman from the South.
Her use of the word “innocent” (which she employs more than once) is seriously problematic. Are we to presume my characters are guilty? Of what? Is Spinrad the jury? If guilty, is she saying my characters deserve to die? Or simply don’t deserve to be heard? Silence equals death.
What disturbs me the most is what I perceive to be a real desire on Spinrad’s part to censor my work. This is the job of Jesse Helms and Company, not that of a theatre critic for a progressive (albeit midwestern) newspaper.
President, Board of Directors
