Glory Box

cf: Hope Chest

Tonight, I got to see solo performance artist Tim Miller perform his show Glory Box at the Forum. Yes, here in little Athens, a real, live, exciting and controversial performance artist! One of the NEA 4 whose grant was revoked by Jesse Helms et al because the work was deemed an inappropriate use of tax monies because of its gay themes.

The show: alternately funny, insightful, risque but always brilliant and thought-provoking. I love performance art for its magnifying-glass attention to detail. One man's experience of discrimination against LGBT, but packaged in something terribly clever and interesting. He recalls his mother's Hope Chest and what that meant to him growing up. All the way up to the reality of being forced to leave this country because his partner has been denied a visa.

The talkback: How exciting to see activism in action! How exciting to see how art can be more than something pretty to look at! People signed petitions for the Uniting American Families Act, a bill in Congress that would allow for same-sex couples in which one was a non-national be allowed to stay in the country ala marrying for a green card. He talked about his own experiences, encouraged us to make our own. And really opened up the idea of glory box.

The theatre as glory box. A place in which you keep things that will be useful and relevant later. A place where your energies and hopes for the future are stashed. A vital space. And in my own geeky way, I can only hope that I help to contribute to that, since one of the things I love most about theatre is that it is one of the few places that is still safe for experimentation. A place to experiment with social ideas and identities within the safety of the confines and context of theatre.