IndyFringe Review: Phi Alpha Gamma

Phi Alpha Gamma is an impressive one-man show created and performed by Dan Bernitt, currently running at the Indianapolis Theater Fringe Festival. The intellectually and emotionally stirring show tells the story of a fraternity confronting (sort of) its own institutionalized homophobia. Two years prior to the show’s setting, one of the brothers was arrested and imprisoned for brutally beating a young gay man. Now the fraternity finds its identity and fears provoked when one of its own members comes out during a house meeting. As the frat brothers debate how to respond to the revelation that there’s been a Gay In Their Midst, a “faggot” who’s probably been whacking off to the thought of them and deriving his own erotic joys from their zone of testosterone, two homophobic voices dominate: that of a rightist-Christian who condemns their bro’s “sexual immorality” and its pervasive poisoning effects on the fraternal community, and that of the fraternity’s president, who airs fairly shallow and puerile concerns about the frat now being labeled “the gay frat” only two years after earning the reputation of being the violently homophobic frat. The president adores “the letters” of the fraternity and the special male utopia they represent, and he can’t bear to have those letters represent anything besides, one presumes, the straight white male who gets to orchestrate the world. Makes me think of the C Street crew in Washington, DC .

Bernitt cycles through representing several characters in the fraternity, deftly changing mannerisms and characteristics to signal shifts in portrayal: he's the charismatic and image-conscious fraternity president, a Bible-wielding “moral voice” of the brotherhood, a brother who’s troubled by his fraternity’s atmosphere of homophobia but who’s reluctant to decamp from the group he views as a surrogate to the family he lacks, and the young man who’s currently serving a multi-year sentence for his mid-coitus assault of a gay man in a park. Bernitt cleverly avoids characterizing either the gay frat brother or the gay victim of the park attack, and instead exercises various versions of prejudice and fear. This gives the play a tone more palatable to centrist audience members, who might shy away from any oratory by overtly dogmatic, liberal characters. Unfortunately, by restricting his most cogent homophobic arguments to that of the narrow-minded Bible-clutching brother, and the simplistic, jockish fraternity president, Bernitt doesn’t fully develop the play’s most provocative point: in a world in which violent acts are perpetrated against individuals based on sexual orientation, everyone shares the guilt.

Bernitt makes this important point through the portrayal of the orphaned brother, who gets distressed by the fraternity’s homophobic slang and rejection of the Gay One. This brother appears to be tolerant and accepting, even indifferent when his brother comes out in the middle of a Chemistry tutoring session (spurred by an obscure association between Chemistry acumen and the gay brother’s toxicology hospitalization following a shame-driven suicide attempt). And yet, Bernitt suggests and then drills home, this guy, too, is guilty. He’s a part of the ideological atmosphere in which hate crime happens. It eventually comes out that this brother is objectively as well as ideologically implicated in the fraternity’s culture of homophobia, but even before this revelation, Bernitt suggests that he shares the guilt. I rather wish he’d kept this character’s guilt at the more complex and provocative level of complicity, which incorporates us sitting in the audience. We all perpetuate homophobia, simply by accepting a society that rests on a homophobic status quo. And thus, we all contribute to the atmosphere in which hate crimes occur.

Bernitt’s play was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Drama , and it’s easy to see why such a powerful play dealing with the culture that surrounds hate crimes was touted by the GLBT organization. It’s especially interesting to consider Bernitt’s play in its current political context. In July of this year, Congress passed the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act (better known as the Matthew Shepard Act), which empowers federal authorities to get involved in local investigations and prosecutions of criminal acts considered to be motivated by prejudice. The new Act expands the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation, an extension many groups consider overdue considering the proportional volume of sexuality-motivated aggressive acts. The Act is particularly significant in a state like Indiana, which does not have hate crime sentence enhancement laws.

The passage of hate crimes laws is naturally controversial, even within the communities that most appear to benefit from the laws. I recommend this thoughtful article questioning the effectiveness and integrity of hate crime laws. The article raises stimulating questions about the inconsistencies between campaigns for “human rights” and campaigns for tougher sentencing, the redundancy of enforcing stricter punishment on crimes whose punishment is already unequivocal, and the fact that taking a stance on hate crime laws often amounts to a wimpy and ultimately hollow political move by legislators eager to appear “progressive” without risking going the full distance in creating a truly equal society.

As Bernitt’s play suggests, the only way to actually protect people like the Michigan teenager who was just recently attacked because of his sexual orientation is to address the pervasive homophobic culture. Sure, we can pass laws that make us look tougher on prejudice, when it materializes in violent acts. But what we really need to do is pass laws that disentangle prejudice from every institution of our society. There are two big, glaring homophobic / heteronormative institutions in the US where we can start: marriage and the military. And in 29 states, it’s still legal to fire someone for divulging he or she is gay. If we want to end violent prejudice, we must first and foremost end such institutional prejudice. We ought to pour our energy into creating a society in which “family values” is no longer a term that can senselessly be wielded to condemn certain family profiles, in which patriotic courage rather than sexual orientation is the primary consideration of a person’s fitness to serve in the military, and in which job performance and workplace behavior are the only things employers evaluate. Etc, etc. The unctuous backing of hate crimes legislation cannot be a substitute for pursuing actual equality.

Bottom line for festival-goers: Bernitt’s play is good. It’s thought provoking. It’s emotionally stirring, and very well-acted. It’s not perfect, but it initiates a conversation that we must continue to have. See it.

Bottom line for everyone: we’re all implicated by the terms we accept in our world. If this troubles you, do something about it.

http://www.indianaequality.org/Default.aspx
http://www.hrc.org/
http://gayrights.change.org/actions
http://www.aclu.org/lgbt/index.html