"Beebo Brinker" Comes to Off Broadway

Even in its distilled form, creating the iconic butch Beebo Brinker presented both an opportunity and a challenge. Butches like Beebo are a rare type onstage (or film or television, for that matter), and Chapman and Ryan felt a strong sense of responsibility to bring this romantic fantasy figure to life — including both her irresistible appeal and her harsh flaws.

"I think that in a certain way, that's the next frontier of gay types out there in the world," said Chapman. "There are very few actual butches that are represented [onstage]. If they are represented, it's as a joke."

Finding an actor who could embody Beebo was extremely challenging. In the Off Broadway production, the part of Beebo Brinker will be played by Jenn Colella (pictured left). "I think that there are just no butch actresses, really, because there are no roles for them," Silverman said. "So even if you are butch, you look really femmey because that's how you're going to get work." According to Chapman and Ryan, most actors, even lesbians, are hesitant to take on a butch role for fear of how they'll be viewed.

In addition to finding the right Beebo, one of the biggest challenges for the three creators was establishing the tone of the play. With language and situations so specific to the 1950s, it could be tempting to camp it up, to allow modern audiences to laugh at the struggles and dilemmas of Bannon's characters. But Chapman, Ryan and Silverman had another goal in mind.

"I just felt like, how can you turn these people into a joke?" Silverman said. "I mean, these people are real people! Why would I direct a play where I held the characters in some sort of contempt or felt that they were ridiculous? We are allowed to do something else besides camp."

Chapman agreed. "You know what? If we had sent this up …" Ryan completed the thought for her: "It wouldn't have the veracity that it does."

The creators were also wary of taking the material too seriously. Chapman admitted the two of them are "laugh whores," and said, "the comedy [in the play] comes out of the way people talk and think about themselves. And we laugh at their painful existence, because we're out and out, and we can laugh."

Even after three years of writing and refining, staging readings and workshops, it took two more years to get Beebo in front of an audience.

Like many who create lesbian-themed plays, Chapman and Ryan struggled to find producers or theater companies that were interested in developing or producing the play. In the end, they decided to self-produce a four-week tryout production at the Fourth Street Theater last fall, working with the Hourglass Theater Company to raise the $60,000 production budget through grassroots fundraising within the lesbian community.

"We went to every single theater I had a relationship with," Ryan said. But no one was interested in producing the play. "And does that make me angry? No. Because all we have to do is just be inventive. And Linda and I have been in this business for so long we can self-produce, we can be inventive."

Ryan didn't miss the irony of David Mamet's November — with its lesbian lead character — being produced on Broadway this season. "Lesbian work written by men will get placed on Broadway, and we have to raise all the money ourselves for a showcase production, getting the space for free," she said. "Isn't that interesting?"

Lesbian writers producing a lesbian-themed play face a question that a famed writer like David Mamet does not: Will it appeal to mainstream audiences?

Making money in theater is so challenging that producers are apt to hedge their bets wherever they can. Many producers avoid controversial topics and plays by writers without a long and successful commercial track record. Most lesbian-themed work falls short on both counts. To win over investors and the mainstream audiences vital for financial success, some lesbian theater artists have chosen to reduce the lesbian content in their work, and have wound up appealing neither to lesbians nor mainstream audiences.