Southern Baptists Sissies

Reviewed by Holly Bartges

Controversial? You bet! Offensive? Indubitably! Blaspheme? By all means. Heretical? No question.

James O’Hagan-Murphy stands as Lance Belistein and Robin Madel listen in Southern Baptist Sissies Photo by Daniel Bruning

All of these aspects may indeed be true, but certainly not for the obvious conclusions.

A sleazy bar next to a church sanctuary occupied by decadent characters and a sordid lot?

Two naked boys making love in front of a cross?

A mother quizzically fractured over the strange behavior of her son struggling for OK words to explain to her pastor all the while making an obvious play for his attention?

Yes, heresy of the highest degree, but not heresy from the church's point of view, heresy, rather, from the boys' point of view.

Kids struggling with their sexuality, seeing, feeling what no one has before mentioned. Confused over what goes on inside their bodies and minds. They don't even have the questions to ask, much less what to do with what they don't know.

A pastor who blares out hell fire and damnation, that the answer to everything is accepting Jesus into your heart and soul, reading the Bible, and above and beyond “Pray,” If you still have questions, you haven't prayed hard enough, and if you have questions without words, you haven’t prayed often enough. Now that’s blaspheming of the highest order. That’s heresy of the “nth” degree.

That’s Del Shores’ poignant, heartbreaking, redemptive play, Southern Baptists Sissies, depicting his Texas Southern Baptist Church experience now playing at Theatre Group’s Theatre On Broadway. Directed by Steven Tangedal, it could well be TOB’s most important production to date.

Would that every minister, clergy, pastor, chaplain, whatever, in the Denver Metropolitan area would clutch their prayer book, and make a point to experience this production. Would that a conference of ministers could be organized to experience it together. This play just doesn’t live with the Southern Baptist Church. Once upon a time I stood on the other side, muzzled by the church, forbidden to speak the word homosexual because as a single woman minister I wasn’t expected to even know how to spell the word much less pronounce it, and was hung by association. I lived in my own world of hell, agony, and guilt because I could say nothing, do nothing, and currently writing a book on the experiences.

Four kids, best friends, growing up under the protective cover of the Southern Baptist Church, experiencing growing inklings, scaring them, torturing them, leaving them hanging high and dry.

Pray, they’re told. They do. Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Some do. One holds back. One has the gumption to ask questions.

TOB’s center stage is chiseled to depict the inside of a church sanctuary complete with stained glass windows, a cross and pulpit. On one side the makings of a sleazy bar where Preston “Peanut” Leroy (David Ballew) lives more than he just occupies. On the other side of the stage marks an office, sometimes the pastor’s office, sometimes a whatever office. The effect is pleasingly startling. Tangedal designed it, and CJ Hosier made the design a reality.

With the Preacher thundering his simplistic sermon grandly portrayed by Todd Peckman, Mark Lee Fuller carrying the soul of Shores embodied by James O’Hagan-Murphy narrates the story. With time dissolving, Mark begins his story with his friends while the Preacher welcomes everyone to the Calvary Baptist Church, moving with outstretched glad hand into the audience, encouraging everyone to stand and sing When The Roll Is Called Up Yonder. “All fall short of the glory of God” he bellows. Mark refers to what he might well become known as a sissy. The Preacher offers an invitation. Andrew, carrying the weight of the world and his confused guilt snugly on his shoulders played immensely well by Adam Lee Brodner, responds to the invitation giving his “something” while he clings desperately to his own heart and soul, Mark casually discusses how they hated the term Sissies. In a conversational tone he tells the audience what they learned at the foot of the cross in the cocoon of Calvary Baptist, and how they learned to hate themselves. Andrew didn’t want to burn in Hell.

T. J. Brooks standing tall, confident and handsome immersed himself in knowing scripture backwards, forwards and upside down. Benny (Preston Lee Briton) tries to throw it off by engaging his voice in singing as Iona Taylor, dressed in the drag of the grand and glorious Divas. Benny knows how to separate the ache, guilt, and hurt from the public face of an entertainer. He’s good and he knows it. He covers his confusion with a smirk, snarl, and sex appeal oozing from his boa. In the privacy of an office, as he disrobes from his fantasy façade, Briton also disrobes the Iona character into the confused questioning agonized Benny.

Robin Madel throws her quick-change artistry into high gear playing all of the mothers of these topsy-turvy boys. She is especially effective as Andrew’s worried Mom, having found hidden books and magazine she doesn’t think he should be reading. The preacher suggests she pile them in plain sight in his room leaving him a note suggesting she and Andrew have a talk. All the while reaching for the Preacher’s hand and arm. She follows the Preacher’s suggestion. The sight of the forbidden magazines adds insult to injury already saturated with guilt for Andrew, pushing him over the edge.

Andrew turned himself inside out with prayer, asking Jesus to remove this twisted blight from him, but it won’t go away.

Coerced by his mother, Mark agrees to baptism along with T. J. only more takes place with raging curious hormones than just a dunk in the baptismal pool. At 12 years of age, Mark feels a sense of love never before felt. Mark knows TJ felt it too, but TJ wraps himself in a Biblical blanket of good works, scripture, denial, and a girl friend he pretends to love.

Elegant in his decadence, David Ballew collapses into a sleazy bar as Peanut attempting to drown his sorrows in drink and talk. A self-declared outcast, a nerd, he’s given up searching, given up questioning, to hide behind a flimsy curtain of bravado, laughter, and talk. Befriending Odette Annette Barnet deliciously played close to the chest by Amanda Earle; Peanut’s boisterous blustering permeates the atmosphere. Uneasy about being in the bar, hungry for protection and a friend, Odette is not eager to reveal her real reason for being there. Welcoming Peanut’s bruised showmanship, she finds it big enough to hide behind with him.

All the while the Preacher wraps himself so snugly in Preacherhood, parroted words, memorized responses, quotes from the Bible, he has become a stained copy of a man with two arms and two legs but no sense of what it means to be a member of the human race.

Written with fervor, brilliant clarification and directed under a knowing sensitive hand, the production is an uncomfortable brilliant light shining on an ongoing forever situation.

Preachers uncomfortable in their own skins, denying their own sexuality, proclaiming the word of God, teaching hate, fear, guilt, and the inability to love one’s self, much less anything else.

A redeeming quality emerges even after Andrew’s unfortunate taking of his life, with the recognition that God’s love has nothing to do with what the church says, and even less to do with ministers guilt and fear. It’s a hard road to walk alone, especially when one is eight, and then 12 and they pray and they pray and nothing happens, no one answers.

Would that not only every minister in the Denver Metropolitan area could experience Southern Baptists Sissies, but that every sexual education course would arrange to bring their classes, along with their parents to educate, to bolster a human acceptance of human nature, to encourage, a more open relaxed attitude toward sex, sexual orientation without shame and guilt. And with pride. Contrary to popular belief no one is going to become a Sissy or gay just because they see a play. It doesn’t work that way. There is always the hope more open conversations can take place, so that kids with burning questions have a place to take them instead of letting them burn, torment and eat them alive.

Redemption plays a huge role in this production given perspective by Shores’ honest appraisal, Tangedal’s insightful directional talent, and a cosmological talented cast.

I know. I am a dreamer. I build castles in the air. Pisces tend to do that. This is an exquisite enlightened production that deserves attention, exploration, discussion and dialogue. This is a should-not-be-missed production by anyone because of its content, because of its artistic style, because of its ultimate theological truth, because it is just plain excellent.

Did I get carried away? Probably. I stood on the other side far too long, watching kids like Mark, T. J., Andrew, and Benny, along with several girls writhe through their agonies unable to do anything, say anything, offer anything except friendship. In some cases that was enough. In other cases it wasn’t. If theatre is established to take one’s passion out for a walk, this production of Southern Baptist Sissies accomplished its goal.

Miss this one, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.