Mark Bly, The Alley Theatre's resident dramaturg, has received the G. E. Lessing Career Achievement Award. The Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) presented the award to Bly at its recent 25th anniversary conference in Alberta, Canada. Established in 1985, LMDA was formed to affirm, expand, and promote the role of the dramaturg.
Bly is only the fourth artist in LMDA's history to receive this honor. According to LMDA Chair Cynthia M. SoRelle, the award celebrates Bly's "distinguished career as a dramaturg, scholar, teacher, mentor and driving force in the sustenance and growth of LMDA."
Dramaturgs help actors and audiences understand a play, providing valuable context and history, bringing the written words to life on the stage. Just this season, Bly, a rock star in his field, has dramaturged world premieres Intelligence-Slave and Gruesome Playground Injuries, along with such classics as Our Town and Harvey. Thus far, Bly has dramaturged over 90 productions, including such seminal plays as Suzan-Lori Parks' The America Play at Yale Rep and the Public Theater and Moises Kaufman's 33 Variations at Arena Stage, La Jolla Playhouse and on Broadway.
A graduate of of Yale School of Drama, Bly currently serves as Alley's Senior Dramaturg and Director of New Play Development. He is also a Distinguished Professor of Theater at the University of Houston. Prior to coming to Houston he served as Senior Dramaturg at the Arena Stage and Director of Arena's New Play Development Series.
As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.
Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.
Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.
Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.
Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.
Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.
Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.
