Is it Finally Time for Paula Vogel’s “Gay Family” Play?
By MARK BLANKENSHIP
Maybe now, after all these decades, we can see the show with new eyes. When it was produced in the 80s and 90s, Paula Vogel’s And Baby Makes Seven was met with so much hostility—and so much outright homophobia—that she said it was cursed and declared it her “Scottish play.” She didn’t want it to be mounted in New York City ever again.
Eventually, though, she met Constance Zaytoun and Marc Stuart Weitz, the married couple who lead Purpleman Theater. They were passionate about Vogel’s script, and they wanted to produce it. After several years of conversations and encounters through mutual friends, the playwright finally gave her consent, and now Purpleman’s production is running through April 12 in partnership with the New Ohio Theatre.
“I haven’t seen it in a long, long time,” says Vogel, who hasn’t been involved with this remount but plans to attend opening night. “It’ll be very interesting to see how it feels, now that the Queen has given gay marriages her blessing.”
For those who don’t know : And Baby Makes Seven follows Ruth and Anna, a lesbian couple about to have their first child. The baby’s father is their gay friend Peter, but before any of them can face actual parenthood, they have to deal with their imaginary children.
See, Anna and Ruth sometimes pretend to be kids. Anna plays Cecil, a 9 year-old genius, while Ruth vacillates between a feral orphan and a French boy named Henri. The women slip into these personae all the time, the way some people use funny voices to impersonate their mothers, but they don’t know if the imaginary kids should be allowed to survive.
As the characters shift their allegiances, Vogel delivers a fascinating look at how adults relate to the idea of parenthood. “It’s about the invention of your life and your family, and I think that’s where it’s incredibly rich,” says Zaytoun, who plays Anna. “It’s just so wonderfully complex.”
Mark Blankenship is TDF’s online content editor
Photos by Steven Schreiber