Dear Harvey
For a tribute to Harvey Milk, Patricia Loughrey interviewed "the people he knew and the lives he changed." At Diversionary Theatre, a cast of seven reads/performs letters, interviews, and testimonials while Thomas Hodges plays original music on piano and slides project on a scrim. What comes through is a courageous man, savvy in politics, with a remarkable gift for seeing the potential in people - like Anne Kronenberg, whom he made his campaign manager when she was an inexperienced 22. The movie Milk has been criticized for hagiography (as if he were the first gay person to run for office and the first to shout "come out!"). Loughrey's script verges at times on gilding but succeeds in painting a balanced portrait (as when Kronenberg says, "He was a mensch in many ways - and a diva"). What also comes through are touches missing from the movie (for me, at least, Sean Penn stood between Milk and the audience, his performance calling as much attention to himself as to Milk). Dear Harvey offers more personal observations and recollections - the off-camera Harvey Milk, in other words, who, the 55-minute Diversionary piece shows, was quite a human being.
Worth a try.
When
Ongoing until Saturday, April 25, 2009
Hours
| Saturdays, 8pm |