Fighting Chance Productions

by Danielle Lemon

Devin Pihlainen, a Guelph University theatre graduate, returns to FCP after a great performance in The Lieutenant of Inishmore last season to play legendary fashion designer Rudi Gernreich in The Temperamentals.

FCP: Who is Rudi Gernreich?

DP: He was a Hollywood costume designer, and he was the designer of the first thong and monokini, actually! He moved to the US from Vienna when he was 16. The play centers on Rudi’s romance with Harry Hay, which brought about the founding of the Mattachine Society.

FCP: How much responsibility do you feel playing a real life character?

DP: The historic background of this play is so important, that I really want to get it right, and do service to the playwright and to the story. You can get lost in preparation though – at some point you have to drop it and just get into the character. I like to err on the side of “feeling like Rudi” rather than being technically perfect in terms of the accent and mannerisms. If I can communicate the emotional aspects of Rudi’s journey and his conflict, then I’ll have done my job.

FCP: What does Rudi see in Harry?

DP: He’s attracted to the fighter. They come from very different backgrounds and have very different viewpoints, and Rudi loves arguments. Obviously there’s a physical attraction too, but the initial draw is an intellectual one.

FCP: You mentioned that the historic background of the show is really important…

DP: It is – but it’s as much about finding who you are and having the courage to be it. This story can change someone’s life if they let it – the history is just the foundation.

Devin Pihlainen stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

by Danielle Lemon

Brian Hinson has been onstage for years, most recently in Las Vegas, where he performed in Take Me Out, Cloud Nine, and Amadeus. In his first show with FCP, Brian Hinson leads the cast of  The Temperamentals as Harry Hay, who founded a number of LGBT organizations, including the Mattachine Society.

FCP: Tell us about Harry Hay.

BH: Harry was a founder of the Mattachine Society and other LGBT organizations. He never made the cover of Time Magazine, like Rudi did – he’s woefully unknown, given what he did.

FCP: What is Harry’s relationship with Rudi like?

BH: There’s this constant fluctuation and dichotomy between the freedom they can feel in certain places and situations, and the constant threat of being discovered. Sometimes they play with that line, the way they touch, because it’s exciting – Rudi wants to do that, and Harry is resistant at first, but Rudi helps him learn to relax, and learn not to try to conform into the mainstream, but to be himself . Harry’s relationship with Rudi has a back and forth aspect to it, in terms of how far they go.

Harry’s had lots of lovers before Rudi, but Rudi is the first one who’s ever challenged him and stood up to him, and although I think Harry likes to think he’s always the one in control, I think Rudi also has a lot of control, and Harry loves that about Rudi.

FCP: Harry’s also a Communist.

BH: Yes, but Harry loves the party for its principles, not necessarily for what was going on in Russia and the Eastern bloc countries in the 1950s – those countries were presenting a very different picture to the rest of the world about how they were really operating. The ideology – the idea that the workers of society should have control – that’s what appeals to Harry. Harry grew up in the Depression, so he saw the complete downfall of capitalism and worked on a lot of farms, so I think he had a chance to see a lot of people were suffering the worse end of what that era had to offer. I can see why he and so many other people were actually drawn to the ideology of Communism, without knowing what it would later become. That helps me as an actor justify where he’s coming from.

FCP: The ideals of equality seem like a connection between Communism and what the founders of the Mattachine Society are trying to do.

BH: Harry is really interested too in how culture can be an instrument of change – he loves music, and he references songs from the Underground Railway and other political movements, to impose that meaning on what they were trying to do with the Mattachine Society.

FCP: How much is this a history play and how much is it a relationship play?

BH: In terms of words on a page? I’d put it at half and half, but for me I think the thrust has got to be the emotional arc of these characters. My hope is that – let’s put it this way – what would be of interest to me, what would grab me as an audience member is this desire for Rudi and Harry to be able to be together and stay together. That’s what we all connect to, is the love.

FCP: What does this show offer someone who might not be as interested in the LGBT history aspects of this play?

Beyond the gay audience, and the history lesson of this play, I think everybody, at some point in their lives, feels like they’re on the outside of something, looking in, and feels oppressed, even if they’re not. And this – the small victories that the men in this play achieve – it helps us feel hope and possibility that we can somehow get the things that we want, whether that’s love or just something else we want out of life.

Brian Hinson stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

by Danielle Lemon

This is Rob Monk’s first show with FCP. A Vancouver native, Rob is a graduate of Grant McEwan’s musical theatre program. He plays a variety of characters, including Dale Jennings, a founder of the Mattachine Society, in The Temperamentals.

FCP: What kind of characters are you playing in this show?

RM: I’m playing a carnie worker, and a cop, and Dale Jennings, who’s a bit of a tough guy. He helped found the Mattachine Society, and then went on to form “One Inc.,” which was another gay rights organization that also published a magazine.

FCP: How much responsibility do you feel to do these characters justice, given they were part of a real historical movement?

RM: The historical part of this gay rights movement is a big part of the play. It’s not all about that – a big part of this story is the love story between Harry and Rudi. But the historical part is just as important. What I like about it is, I think it’s a story that not a lot of people know, and so I do feel a responsibility, that people realize there were these pioneers out there working in a really dangerous time to get this out in the public eye and try to be accepted. It was really dangerous for them to do so. But it’s a nice mix of the history and the romance.

FCP: Tell us a bit about the political dimensions to this story.

RM: The founders of the Mattachine Society were all Communists, and to me that’s really interesting, that they took these principles of communism and brought them into the gay rights movement, which was radical, and scared a lot of people – even people who wanted to be part of it. They were scared of that communist history.

FCP: How relatable are the characters you play, for you on a personal level, and for the audience?

RM: The nice thing about these characters is, I think they’re quite relatable. I did have to research them, definitely. But they’re relatable just in the fact that they’re just so human. They’re not stereotypes – and that’s really a credit to how the play was written – their struggles with every aspect of their daily lives are very relatable to me, and I’m sure to audience members as well, regardless of anyone’s sexuality.

Rob Monk stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

by Danielle Lemon

Last seen in Our Class with United Players, James Gill plays a variety of roles in his first show with FCP, including Chuck Roland, a founder of the Mattachine Society, and legendary director Vincente Minelli.

FCP: Tell us a little bit about Chuck Roland, who is one of the founders of the Mattachine Society.

JG: In relation to the other 4, he’s a little more grounded, a little more practical, a little more risk averse. A communist, had an idealistic notion of a just society, but wanted to do things properly and with a certain degree of care.

The other character I play is Vincente Minnelli, who is of course, the husband of Judy Garland, and certainly in casual reference, he’s not considered to be a “fellow traveller” – but then he was married to Judy and fathered Liza, so really… (laughs) how much proof do you need? He also represents that cautious conservatism. He’s the link between Rudi and Rudi’s path to success in Hollywood and is a realist about how much can be achieved politically. There’s a theme among the characters I play, in that they believe and know certain things to be true, but they live in the real world and have to continue to be able to live in this world. They’re characters who are willing to say the unspeakable truth.

FCP: How are you approaching the “real life” aspects of these characters?

JG: This is the second back-to-back historical play that I’ve done, and in both cases, there’s huge potential for research and you can get really lost in the details. What’s important for a director to be able to do is say “Stop, we know enough about the real life characters and we need to create an engaging piece of theatre.” What matters is that there is a three-dimensional person here who has a relationship with the other characters on the stage, and is believable to the audience. It’s how we relate to each other that’s important, not that we’re being historically faithful to every little nuance.

FCP: How important is the historical aspect of this play to you?

JG: I grew up post-Stonewall, [Ed’s note: the 1969 Stonewall riots in NYC] but at a time when the gay community was getting very interested in its history, and the Mattachine Society was a really important part of that. I think we’ve lost a bit of that, and I think that there are a large number of young men and women who date their understanding of the gay experience from 1969. And so, the history is crucial. We have to understand that this is a very important milestone in the growth of gay self-identity and community development, but history lessons don’t necessarily make good theatre. We have to be rooting for the heroes, and we need to know that they’re real people.

James Gill stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.

by Danielle Lemon

This will be David Nicks’ third show with FCP, having appeared in Forbidden Broadway (for which he won a CTC award), and as The Beadle in Sweeney Todd. In The Temperamentals David plays a variety of characters, including Bob Hull, one of the real life founders of the Mattachine Society.

FCP: So tell us about the historical context of this show.

DN: Well, the historical context of the show is the founding of the Mattachine Society, one of the first LGBT rights organizations in America in the 1950s. But I really think the historical context takes a backseat to the love story between the 5 men who came together to form something greater than themselves – and that story defies historical context.

FCP: You’re playing multiple characters in the show, including real-life people. Have you been doing lots of research?

DN: This has been a very prep-heavy show for me. I’m playing a number of historical people, including George Shibley, a famous civil rights lawyer of the era. He was Lebanese and spoke with an accent, so I’ve been picking up language tapes from the library to work on my accent! The most difficult challenge in this show is how quickly we have to switch from character to character – I walk offstage as George, for example, and come right back on two lines later as another character. In order to switch that quickly between roles, you really need to be solid in terms of each character and know what you’re doing. [Laughs] It’s actor gymnastics, really.

FCP: What’s the most important theme of the play for you?

DN: I think that it’s a relationship play as much as it’s a history play. Yes, these men achieve something historic, but it’s also about their struggle to be true to who they are in private. As much as it’s a love story between Harry and Rudi, it’s also about the “love affair” these 5 men had with each other, in the sense that they came together, from disparate backgrounds, and achieved something great. I think that’s a fantastic message and one that everyone can relate to.

FCP: And you get to wear some great Mad Men-era suits, I hope!

DN (laughs): I hope so! That will inform so much of the physicality of these characters, this armour that they wear.

David Nicks stars in The Temperamentals by Jon Marens, directed by Ryan Mooney. November 22 – December 3, 2011 at the PAL Studio Theatre.