written and performed by Hunter Lee Hughes, Los Angeles, CA
www.hunterleehughes.com
directed by Cody Bayne
video installations by Patrick Kennelly
tech direction: Skip Hardesty
Decorative painting: Melissa Byers
tech staff: Skip Hardesty, Jeremy Thacker
House staff: Erin Marie Hogan, Fred Makler, John Zakibe, Ted Wofford, Jerry Rabushka, Melissa Byers, Cory Popkey, Skip Hardesty.
Hughes uses the migration of monarch butterflies to illustrate the spiritual journey of Harlan, a small town auto mechanic torn betwen duty to wife and child and his sexual desires for men. Believing himself abandoned by God, Harlan sets out on a seemingly impossible journey to reconcile the competing forces of his psyche.
Harlan's journey is portrayed through characterizations of the people he meets along the way, including a self-destructive dating guru, a lonesome candle maker, a male hustle turned evangelical Christian, and a Bulgarian prostitute.
Interwoven with their stores are depictions of the migrations of monarchs, broght to life through sound, light, and visual projections.
For more info visit www.fatelink.com
“A compelling stage
presence... smoldering and vulnerable” -- Les Spindle, Backstage West
A moving examination of the emotional turmoil that results when people suppress their true natures to conform to societal expectations of what is ‘normal’.” -- F. Kathleen Foley, The Los Angeles Times
An arrestingly talented performer, a promising playwright, and not too shabby to look at either." -- Travis Michael Holder, ReviewPlays.com
(action photos by Bryan Orter, Butterfly photo by Ken Gonzales-Day)
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“I Had To Come See My Guys…” and Other Thoughts on Men and Monarchs
Hunter Lee Hughes hails from Missouri City, Texas, but is currently blazing an acting career in film, TV, and stage in Los Angeles. He has appeared in several independent films, and recently began his foray into television by playing Frank Colby in Project: X, a pilot shot for Showtime by producer Tim Rogan and director Starling Price. While also piling up stage credits, Hunter created his one man show, Fate Of The Monarchs, which after running several weeks in Los Angeles is taking wing and to migrate to St. Louis for the weekend of January 20-22. Hunter enjoys hooded sweatshirts, '70s country music, green olives and believes in love.
Q. What do gay men and monarchs have in common? (we’re sure there’s a punch line in here, but let’s go with it)
A. At first, monarchs simply became an important symbol to me personally – their fragility, their endurance, their tiny frame compared to the 2000-mile task ahead of them. I started injecting butterflies into monologues. Then I saw photograph after photograph of monarch butterflies clustered together on trees in Mexico and it hit me – “This is our story.”
Most people think a monarch’s most significant accomplishment is its transformation from caterpillar to butterfly. In reality, a monarch butterfly’s journey has barely begun at that stage. I find this is true of gay people as well. Yes, it’s hard to emerge into oneself, but even harder to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile afterwards.
Q. Have you spent much time cocooning at home to study monarchs?
A. I’ve observed them and read a number of books and articles about monarchs. I’m still waiting for the day when I can hike in Mexico and see the forests where they roost.
Q. You've got a multi-media show going... live action, music, and digital video. What different challenges did you encounter that you might not have doing just a "regular" play. Does your tech staff want to commit murder, or suicide?
A. Let’s just say that Radio Shack made a few dollars off the production. For the actor, there’s some humility involved. Normally, stage is an actor’s medium, especially if it’s a one-man show. The visual installations prominently reminded me that even though I am the only actor, I am still only one part of the show. The show has a life of its own and I merely serve the life, just as the visual installations serve the life. That helps put me in a healthy frame of mind and avoid ego inflation.
Also, rehearsals felt like a film set at times, waiting around for hard-working, technically inclined people to fix something. It was a refreshing blend of the two worlds.
Q. How did your director's vision change the nature of the show, or add to it, after you'd finished writing it?
A. Cody [Bayne] was the first person who said to me, “You know, Hunter, I really think there ought to be some redemption in this piece.” As soon as he said that, I knew I’d offer him the director position. I wrote another monologue and we were on our way.
Cody found a way to transform the characters’ psychological struggle into something visual. It was his idea to make the show multi-media, but I signed on immediately. The visuals changed Fate of the Monarchs in that it became a show that depended on magical realism rather than straight kitchen sink drama.
I feel the visual installations expand the show’s reach and give a sense both of possibility and of the cost of struggle. But they do it without calling attention to themselves or taking away the integrity of the characters or the scene.
Q. Even though it’s a show about gay men, what would straight folks, lesbians, and others take away from it?
A. The show hits universal themes – the longing for love, the burdens of consciousness – that appeal to all sorts of people. Some of the biggest fans of the show in Los Angeles were straight and that is so encouraging to me. A straight African-American woman in her 40s came to see the show four times. I just love her!
“She has the imagination to relate her life to the lives of the men in the play, although in superficial ways she is different than the characters.
“I had to come again to see my guys,” she’d tell me. In fact, sometimes straight people have an easier time feeling compassion for the characters than gay people.
I’ll never forget this Italian-American Christopher Walken-type came to see a reading of Fate of the Monarchs. Totally straight. Looked like he belonged holding up cargo trucks with the guys on The Sopranos. After the reading, he pulled me aside (I was a bit scared) and said, “That scene where the guys were laying ass to ass but never reached for each other….MAN….who can’t relate to that?”
Q. Is this show motivated by any personal experiences?
None of my writing is untouched by personal experience (well, when it isn't, it’s just really awful). Some of the characters are based on real people. The young prostitute in the play is based on a real prostitute I met. I asked him what he liked best about his job and he said, “One time, a guy told me I was the best man he ever had, the most beautiful man he ever had. On that day, I liked my job.” Right away, I knew I’d be writing a monologue about him. And I admit some personal heartbreak made it into the pages, but I don’t want to go into specifics.
Q. Why St. Louis?
Harlan, the lead character, is torn between a wife and child in small-town America and the lure of hot men in the city. This is a struggle that I felt would be relevant in the Midwest and St. Louis. That’s one reason I decided to take this show to the heartland first. Why wait?
Oftentimes, I think there’s an attitude of, “We have to go to Chicago first because people in St. Louis [or Louisville or San Antonio, etc.] can’t handle the show and we need buzz.” That’s rubbish. I can’t wait to see how people connect to the play there.
Q. How is doing a one-man a different experience from other kinds of work?
It’s harder. You don’t have another actor there to feed you. In this case, there are few props. Unlike other projects, I have to play multiple characters, which means distinguishing them from one another is extremely important. These are concerns that I don’t have when I do a film, TV show or straight play. Usually, I’m just concerned with getting to the truth of the situation, without worrying too much about character.
Usually if anybody has a long enough memory to remember my last character, I’m down on my knees thanking God! But with a one-man show, it’s guaranteed they’ll remember the last character I played so I must create six totally different, living human beings. As you might guess, the physical demands of a one-man show require a particular kind of stamina.
