LIBRETTO

 

Il Sogno di Henry Hay

Opera Azione Teatrale

in Two Parts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by

AC Benus

 

 

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Personal Note:

For anyone who studies the seminal work done by the individually brave Americans who first fought for the rights of Gay Americans to exist, one encounters two names – Henry Gerber and Henry Hay. Henry Gerber founded the Society for Human Rights in 1924. This group promoted the integration of Gay men and women into an American society that said it had room for all minorities. His group was strangled by a befuddled court system that could not find any charges against him, but could not allow an openly Gay organization to exist. Henry Hay founded the nascent group that would become the Mattachine Society in 1948. Originally he sought to prevent Gay people – especially youth – from taking their own lives in helpless isolation. His early discussion groups technically constituted ‘criminal conspiracy’ according to the law, for wherever two or more Gay people met, they did so for the purposes of committing a crime.1 Later Hay organized Gay lawyers to help defend Gay people, and those perceived as Gay, from police entrapment, brutality, and lawlessness. In this capacity the group came to quick national attention, and chapters opened overnight in several American cities outside of Los Angeles. Jonathan Ned Katz first brought our history to a broad audience in the mid 1970s. His interview with Henry Hay is in itself a critical piece for history-preservation. Hay relates losing his virginity to a man who in turn had been initiated by one of Gerber’s ‘Chicago group.’ This tender thread speaks volumes about the way Gay history existed before Katz, and how it was disseminated from love to love. Hay first heard about the Human Rights Society from this man when he was seventeen, and it stuck with him until he was brave enough to further Gerber’s cause.

At the same time, ‘do nothing’ GOPs in congress were facing major election losses as people reasoned that Republican big-business control for the country was a losing option for the average working person.2 A freshman senator who faced electoral review in two years grasped on an idea to save his political neck. Fear. This time, the GOPs frightened the masses about Communism, and Joe McCartney kept his seat. He took his show on the road, and by 1955 his so-called un-american activities committee was meeting in Los Angeles to root out show biz folks for blacklisting. Hay was summoned to testify, ostensibly about his former political affiliations, but admitting to being a communist was not a crime. However, if asked if he was Gay, he could be arrested on the spot.

The following story is about the sleepless night before Henry Hay testified. Gerber appears to him, reminds him whose lives could be at stake, and takes him to Washington D.C. to meet with two people able to help him decide how he should testify the following day.

The tender thread of this story passes back from me to Mozart, to Metastasio, to Cicero, and to Scipione who had his own dream and decision to make. History is settled in such waking dreams. This is the space where bravery can coalesce into world-changing decisiveness; the only kind of decisiveness strong enough to be sung about two thousand years later.3

 

 

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Personaggi

 

HENRY HAY: 43-year-old founder and leader of the Mattachine Society. He is tall and somewhat thin. His brown hair is receding. His face hangs heavy with worry and the weight of many other people's fate. Despite this, he is quick to smile with self-effacing humor and a positive outlook. He wears typical 1950’s white and light blue broad-striped pajamas.

HENRY GERBER: 63-year-old founder and leader of the Society for Human Rights. He has a round head, thick build and twinkling blue eyes. His defensive demeanor is of a man who has been persecuted, and is consequently reserved. This breaks when prompted to feel like he is among those who understand him. Then he releases his inner heart with deeply affecting passion and sadness. He wears a lightweight and wrinkled seersucker suit.

CHAMP: 17-year-old boy; lover of both Gerber and Hay. He appears as he did when Gerber first met him. He has tousled and carefree hair and a bright and open personality. The world is his oyster, and he personifies the promised emancipation of a time when being Gay is really no big deal. He is springtime; he is first love, and he is a stand-in for all the boys who are yet to come. He wears blue jeans with rolled up bottoms, a white tee shirt, a lightweight jacket and white Jack Purcell tennis shoes.

This actor also plays the role of the Poet in the Licenza. He should wear dark slacks, a bowtie and '50s sports jacket. He should slick back his hair and wear a youthful mustache.

J. EDGAR HOOVER: 61-year-old director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He is plump, short and ugly with pug features. He is dictatorial, and in a constant suppressed panic that he will be ‘outed.’ He longs for nothing more than to throw down the mask and be as gay as he wants to be. His more than slightly fey attitude constantly reproaches this self-hater to adjust his persona to the butch and vulgar-languaged image he desires to project to his enemies. He conceives of all the world as his enemy, except his husband, Clyde, whom he deeply loves, and a small circle of true friends among whom he can be as camp as he wants to be. He wears a long bathrobe and leather slippers. His thinning hair is in a nighttime hairnet and he carries a long cigarette holder with which he often poses in a glamorous attitudes. Later, the exact nature of his undergarments is revealed.

ETHEL MERMAN: 47-year-old Diva of stage and screen. Naturally domineering and good-natured, she wins everybody’s heart with her winning presence. She is bosom-buddies with Hoover. Hoover loves her and shares all the intimate details of his life with Clyde with her. They have been friends for two decades and she secretly delights in being the role model for Hoover’s alter ego, which she sees quite often. She, in contrast to the others, is impeccably dressed for a special occasion. She wears a form-fitting strapless, sleeveless, and plunge-lined white dress. This knee-length gown is covered with sparkling white beadwork. She wears white high heels, and her hair is done up with soft curls around the bang line. She wears elbow-length white gloves, with diamond-encrusted bangles over them. She also wears large diamond eardrops and a 2-inch wide diamond collar (see her costume from the 1953 film There’s No Business Like Show Business for reference

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EthelMermanNoBusinesstrailer.jpg).

  

   

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Sceneggiatura di Azione

 

Action takes place in Hay’s Los Angles bedroom, and later before monuments in and around Washington D.C. Action begins about midnight on the morning of July 2nd, 1955. We see Hay in bed, tossing the light covers over him on this summer’s night. Behind him we see open windows with curtains fluttering in the breeze. We do not see Gerber enter, but we have the sense, as Hay does, of someone standing in the shadows.

 

Musical Setting Note:

The metres used throughout the poem generally indicate the delivery style/tempo intended for the stage action. Eight syllable lines are meant to follow the natural cadence of everyday speaking tempo, while decreases in the syllable count of individual line show progressively slower, more contemplative action. So, for example, a four-syllable line should take twice as long in performance as eight-syllable recitative lines.

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Part One – Remembrance

Scene One: “Friendship and Freedom”

(Hay’s bedroom. Bed is stage center rear with windows on either side. Gerber stands in the shadows stage left. Hay tosses and turns, then he sits up in bed and stares into the shadows where Gerber is standing.)

 

No. 1 – Cavatina con Recitetivo

 

HENRY HAY:

(Slowly tossing the covers aside and fearfully rising. His eyes stay trained on the shadows around Gerber.)

Do I sleep, or do I wake?

Do I dream, or do I quake?

The air feels charged with importance…

Someone has come to answer me.

The breeze feels chilled with expectance…

Do I dream, or do I quake?

Do I sleep, or do I wake?

 

HENRY GERBER:

(Stepping out of the shadows. Hay backs away.)

I am here. One you do not know,

Either by my face, or bearing –

But you know my name, and more too.

For Friendship and Freedom I fought,

For our kind, before you took the cause.

 

[Recetetivo]

HENRY HAY:

(Hay stumbles forward, forgetting all inhabitation and scratching the back of his head)

Henry Gerber? Are you the one...?

The rock of all Gay Liberation?

 

HENRY GERBER:

In nineteen-twenty-four I chartered

The Society for Human Rights,

And fought for Gay Emancipation.

 

HENRY HAY:

(suddenly lighting his face with a smile, placing hands on hips and lost in the humor of the situation)

Well…thanks for dropping in, but I…

 

HENRY GERBER:

You go before the Congressional

Hearings on Un-Americans.

You need your sleep, but you also

Need to decide what you will do.

 

HENRY HAY:

(Coming forward to get a better look at this legend of a man)

I appreciate your efforts,

But tomorrow, I’m damned if I do,

Damned if I don’t. They’ll want to know

If a Gay Defense Group was led

By a Queer-Commie. Yes to either

Ensures the end of Gay Rights too.

 

HENRY GERBER:

(Looking nervously around, then coming to Hay in confidence)

I’m here to help you choose the right path.

(Coming to stand next to him, his arm extended)

Do you deny your nature,

And by it the true nature

Of all others who rely on you?

Or accept it, no matter

The personal challenges:

Live caged or die free.

 

 

No. 2 – Scena con Aria

 

HENRY HAY:

(Feeling incensed and judged. He moves away from Gerber)

Help others!?…They booted me out,

Out of my own organization,

The one I founded,

The one I built from nothing;

They are the ones who just want

To cruise the parks,

And marry a trophy wife,

The whole time keeping

Their grown pool boy close at hand.

I had other plans.

 

[Aria]

It started as

A Queers Anonymous –

With recovery steps,

And three-dollar bill affirmation.

But the moment

We gathered together –

It was clear we were not afflicted,

But crushed by the world’s condemnation.

 

So we turned to a legal struggle:

A common defense fund for members;

Lawyers to fight entrapment charges,

And outreach to educate ourselves:

Not to hate in their image,

Not to loathe in our own fear.

 

From those first few,

Sat in nauseous silence –

To a hundred, then more,

With steady growing confirmation

Sealed the moment

To hold each other’s hands –

And to look for the first time with love

On ourselves with anticipation.

 

 

No. 3 – Scena con Recitetivo, Cavatina ed Canzona

 

HENRY GERBER:

Yes, I was there with you in spirit

When the others voted you out.

Commie-baiting, that’s the way,

The only way the government

Could shut you down, splinter us Gays,

Just as they use it to splinter

The broader community.

 

[Cavatina]

Fear works for them

Because the Good Guys

Let them use it.

I fear it will work for them

For a hundred years,

Until leadership steps forward,

As FDR did, and say –

Fear is our biggest enemy,

Not our neighbors.

 

HENRY HAY:

But what about your group?

I still find it hard to believe

That in nineteen-twenty-four,

A Gay Rights group could be founded –

Founded here in America…

What brought it down?

 

HENRY GERBER:

(growing lost in the recounting – then afraid as if reliving the persecution)

 

[Canzona]

Friendship and Freedom:

That was the name

Of our newsletter.

Imagine it slipping,

Sliding and gliding

Into a rural mailbox,

Into an apartment slot –

Gays all over the U.S.

Knowing that isolated as they seemed,

Everywhere, a community

Held out a hand to them with

Friendship and Freedom.

 

You don’t know what it was like –

Someways better, more trusting,

Otherways darker, more cruel.

No one distrusted the cops

And when one group-member

Was booked on a minor charge,

Warrantless cops demanded

To know what our newsletter

Was all about.

‘Want to rape boys, eh?’

None of us had committed a crime,

But all of us lost our jobs,

And with them the funds to

Keep the newsletter.

 

(recap: ‘Friendship and Freedom,’ etc.)

 

 

No. 4 – Recitetivo ed Aria

 

HENRY HAY:

You said I had to pick my path,

But how can I decide?

How can I prepare?

 

HENRY GERBER:

(Grandly holding out his hand for Hay. Once Hay takes it, his bedroom set dissolves and the two men are moving through the night air)

 

[Aria]

Two sides will present to you,

I cannot sway your decision –

Merit will you find,

Drawbacks too you’ll find, one on each side –

Two for both options,

But choose you must.

 

Your hand, and away,

To the night air

That chills not

Nor warms not.

To Lincoln’s abode

Where your guides await.

 

(recap: ‘Two sides will present to you,’ etc)

(exit Gerber leading Hay by the hand stage left)

 

 

Scene Two: “Our Own”

(Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. It is nighttime with brooding shadows on the columns. A young man can be seen cruising the shadows. He stops and props a foot behind him on a column. A flash of a lighter illuminates his face and cupped hand as he lights a cigarette)

 

 

No. 5 – Canzona

 

CHAMP:

(continuing to move about the Memorial)

The breeze pollinates

Love in youthful hearts,

As hand hesitates

To grasp its counterpart.

 

Through the halls

Of power past,

The life force blows.

Sweetly lights

On blossom face,

A shy grin grows.

 

(recap: ‘The breeze pollinates,’ etc.)

(enter Hay and Gerber from stage right)

 

[Recetetivo]

HENRY HAY:

(looking around somewhat dumbfounded)

You’ve taken me…

To the Lincoln Monument?

But tell, why here?

 

HENRY GERBER:

Why not to a place that honors

One of us, to a place where we

(gesturing to the boy)

Congregate to meet our own.

 

HENRY HAY:

(looking dubious)

Here for a bit of cruising, eh?

Not in the mood…

 

HENRY GERBER:

Don’t recognize him, do you?

(nods for the boy to come down to them. Champ steps on his smoke and move towards the men)

Champ Simmons.

 

HENRY HAY:

(gasps)

But how?

He’s so young?

 

 

No. 6 – Duettino a Terzetto

 

CHAMP:

I’m the age you were

(beginning to circle Hay seductively)

When you picked me up –

Seventeen, in LA’s Pershing Square.

 

HENRY HAY:

But you were thirty

When I seduced you –

Using all my awkward boyish charm.

 

I dare not ask how,

I dare not press why –

My first love clad in the youth I had.

 

CHAMP:

Seventeen I show

(moving behind Gerber and grasping his shoulders)

For this is how he

First saw me when I seduced him.

 

I dare not ask how,

I dare not press why –

My first love glad in the youth I had.

 

(a due at recapitulation)

(recap: ‘I’m the age you were,’ etc.)

 

CHAMP and HENRY HAY:

We were two boys who,

Though isolated,

Sought love to bring us out on our own.

 

CHAMP, HENRY HAY and HENRY GERBER:

(the three linking hands)

Hand to hand,

Man to man,

We learn our past

When books fail us.

 

[Recetetivo]

HENRY HAY:

Is he here to help

Make my decision?

 

HENRY GERBER:

No. As I am here

For moral support,

He is here

To remind you

Just what is at stake.

(making a game-show gesture to stage left)

They are here to help

You decide…

 

 

Scene Three: “Fairy to Bolshevik”

(Same as above)

 

No. 7 – Duetto

(enter Merman and Hoover chatting with each other and seemingly oblivious of the three men)

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

Pulled out of bed

In the middle of the night,

And to a known cruising spot –

(Barley able to get

The curlers out

Of my wig)

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

Pulled out of bed

In the middle of the night,

To a patriotic spot! (she salutes)

(But who knew I’d get

That big old lout

Of a prig)

 

(a due at recapitulation)

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER and ETHEL MERMAN:

Youth needs our help

And so sleep will have to wait.

We come Johnny-on-the-spot

Ready to get

Things straightened out,

Small or big.

 

HENRY HAY:

(to Gerber)

Do I sleep, or do I wake?

Ethel Merman!

(puzzled)

but who is that fey little man?

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(incensed)

Director Hoover to you!

 

HENRY HAY:

(to Gerber)

J. Edgar Hoover –

Ethel Merman!

(puzzled)

But surely that man is not…

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

(interrupting with one hand on her hip and the other dangling an imaginary bell in the air in front of Hoover’s face)

As Twinkly as Tinker Bell?!

(recap: ‘Pulled out of bed,’ etc.)

 

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(introspected)

Pulled out of bed

Away from my own dear Clyde

And from my sweet revolver –

(Barley able to get

The curlers out

Of my wig)

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

(sad for Hoover’s closeted life)

It’s as I’ve said,

Here to sacred ground we glide,

Tasked to be problem-solver.

(But who knew I’d get

That big old lout

Of a pig)

 

(a due at recapitulation)

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER and ETHEL MERMAN:

Youth needs our help,

And so sleep will have to wait.

We come Johnny-on-the-spot

(Merman salutes)

Ready to get

Things straightened out,

Small or big.

 

 

[Recetetivo]

ETHEL MERMAN:

How is dear Clyde?

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

We just came back from a “working”

Vacation in Key West…

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

(aside to Champ)

(On the taxpayer dime…)

(the boy suppresses a loud guffaw)

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(eying the boy with hostile lust.)

We’ll have to have you come over

To look at our snap shots,

At one of our Dress-up parties…

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

(aside to Champ)

(Where he’ll be in the dress…)

(the boy laughs loudly)

 

(Gerber clears his throat)

 

No. 8 – Recitetivo ed Aria

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

(pulling Hay aside)

Yes. Now, you have a decision –

You must make it, or it makes you.

What’s more Un-American than

McCarthy-style hearings themselves?

Tomorrow you’ll go before it

(rolling her eyes like she’s getting dizzy)

And they’ll try to link Gay to Commie –

Fairy to Bolshevik – But

Neither will stand the matching.

I say. Live free. To hell with shadows

And blending into a crowd that

The more populace it becomes,

Leaves you feeling more alone.

 

[Aria]

Screw the doctors –

You Queers ain’t sick!

It’s just as I sang

To Georgie Gershwin:

‘Who Cares? When love

Leads the way!’

 

Medicine changes,

The courts too,

Doctors learn more every day,

And judges have hearts too.

Go out there and fight,

Win over those hearts,

Turn over those laws,

Debunk those quacks,

And flush down their pills.

 

(recap: ‘Screw the doctors,’ etc.)

 

 

No. 9 – Recitetivo ed Aria

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(pulling Hay bodily away from Merman)

Don’t listen to her. You and I

Know the ways of the world.

She can’t understand what it’s like –

Not for Our kind, (looking over his shoulders) Not in this world.

Think of yourself first –

Your position second –

Family, Honor, third –

Live discrete, private,

(eying the boy lewdly)

Closed-door lives, for

Closed doors mean

No one can lock you out.

 

[Aria]

We’re like hermit crabs,

Born without shells of our own,

So we borrow what protection

Society allows, and hunch

It on our backs, to carry us on,

(Hoover grabs Hay and tries to cover him. Hay struggles and breaks free)

Protected, covered in a shroud.

 

Don’t think of it as sad!

Think of it as 'gay.'

A right old time,

Just have it where none can see,

Just have it where no photographers

Can snap it away.

(holding up his hands as a shield from the imaginary flash bulbs)

Don’t think of it as sad!

Think of it as 'gay.'

A right old time,

It’s the way smart men

Have ever been –

From Bible-humping

King James, to social hermit

James Buchanan!

Those who knew

Had no right to say.

 

(recap: ‘We’re like hermit crabs,’ etc.)

 

 

Scene Four: “What will you do”

(Same as above)

 

[Recetetivo]

ETHEL MERMAN:

(aside to Hoover)

Oh, how Clyde

Would chide you…

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

So? He wants

To live more open,

But he knows we can’t.

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

I remember New Year's, thirty-six,

After the Stork we went

To the Cotton Club.

You derided Blacks and Whites dancing,

And Clyde said: “But

I wish I could have

A place to dance with you.”

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

Poppycock. No miscegenation –

No Queens on the dance floor.

I don’t make the rules.

 

HENRY GERBER:

(coming up behind Hay and startling him)

You see your options –

Your testimony tomorrow

Will demand you

Affirm you Gayness –

Or deny it as a lie.

What will you do?

 

 

No. 10 – Finale della Prima Parte

 

CHAMP:

What will you do?

 

HENRY HAY:

I’m confused.

What do I do?

How do I know

Which way is up –

Where my feet are?

 

It seems the day has come

Never more I feared the dawn

That could bring only darkness

And a sunset on rising.

 

CHAMP:

What will you do?

 

(recap: ‘I’m confused,’ etc.)

 

CHAMP:

You will do what’s right –

I have faith in you.

Let them threaten jail

And a million men

Will pay your bail.

 

HENRY HAY:

Your faith is misplaced –

For now in my life

I can only fail.

No help comes from me

Except my wail.

 

HENRY GERBER:

You have helped more than

You could ever know.

Slowly change will sail.

From your actions see

Hatred will quail.

 

(a tre at recapitulation)

 

ETHEL MERMAN:
(to Hoover)

Why are you so down on progress?

Don’t you see

It would benefit you too?

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(mocking – theatrical)

Pie-in-the-sky

Like one of your songs?

Holding hands,

Though never in the open!

 

ETHEL MERMAN:

But Clyde holds yours

In taxi cabs –

In restaurants –

And calls you his dear Eddie.

 

J. EDGAR HOOVER:

(tender at the thought of Clyde)

In private,

In public;

One – Yes!

One – no.

 

ETHEL MERMAN and J. EDGAR HOOVER:

For us to believe,

First in others, then

It within us hail,

Is hardest to see

Through dark doubt’s heaviest veil.

 

CHAMP:

You will do what’s right –

I have faith in you.

Let them threaten jail

And a million men

Will pay your bail.

 

HENRY HAY:

Your faith is misplaced –

For now in my life

I can only fail.

No help comes from me

Except my wail.

 

HENRY GERBER:

You have helped more than

You could ever know.

Slowly change will sail.

From your actions see

Hatred will quail.

 

ETHEL MERMAN and J. EDGAR HOOVER:

For us to believe,

First in others, then

It within us hail,

Is hardest to see

Through dark doubt’s heaviest veil.

 

(together)

 

CHAMP:

(taking Hay’s hand)

What will you do?

 

TUTTI:

Time presses forward,

The choices we make,

Though we think them as ours,

Decides the fate of others.

 

(Darkness – End of Part One - Intermission)

 

 

 

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1. If you feel, as I do, a sigh of relief at how things have changed, it is due to the work of Henry Hay.

2.The phrase ‘do nothing’ Republicans was part of Truman’s 1948 election slogans. Democrats retook control of the House in that election.

3. See Jonathan Ned Katz, Gay American History, New York 1976, pages 584-592 for Gerber; pages 619-631 for Mattachine founding; and pages 160-166 for Hay’s appearance before the Congressional Committee.