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Steve Ferguson (L.) and Rasheed Green in Hoya Saxa Photo: Ken Stanek
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The 32nd annual
Baltimore Playwrights Festival started off on the right foot with Rich Espey’s The Rainbow Plays currently running at
the Fells Point Corner Theatre. Mr. Espey,
a Baltimore-area resident, is a three-time winner of the Carol Weinberg Award
for best play at the Baltimore Playwrights Festival for Fifty-Fifty, Hope’s Arbor,
and Following Sarah.
In The Rainbow Plays, under the strong direction of Lisa Davidson who
is making her Baltimore directing debut, six distinct mini-plays, each about 10
minutes long representing the different themes contained in the rainbow or gay
pride flag are presented. A seventh play
attempts to sum it all up with a humorous, clever, rap-dominated performance. As in the case of that flag, The Rainbow Plays consist of a tapestry
of discrete stories, with the only common thread woven throughout is that they
are gay- or lesbian-related.
The rainbow flag, which
originally had eight colors and now contains six, was designed by the artist
Gilbert Baker in 1978 as a positive alternative to the pink triangle used by
the Nazis to identify homosexuals. Some
theorize he was inspired by the death of Judy Garland of “Over the Rainbow”
fame—an iconic gay anthem—which occurred just a few days before the Stonewall
uprisings in June 1969. Mr. Baker
recently told a Chicago television station: “The rainbow came to mind almost
instantly as an obvious expression of diversity and acceptance.”
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