On a Stool at the End of a Bar

This show was by far my favorite event our class has attended together this semester. It was refreshing to see because the play did not just portray a cookie cutter story that I have already seen a thousand versions of. Instead, it discusses the relevant theme of discrimination against homosexual and transgender people. It questions the societal norms that dictate who is labeled a “family”. Since I am taking a sociology class now, this topic was extremely interesting to me.

I was looking at the set before the play began and wondered how the crew was going to switch the set between scenes. I thought that they were going to use the gaps between the walls and the set to transport the props. Instead, they set up different areas of the room as different scenes and varied the lighting. It was extremely well done. Overall, this was an extremely interesting experience for me.

By the way, I found Joey! After a long discussion, I talked him out of joining the military and he is coming home. In all seriousness, I had a very interesting conversation with Luke Slattery, the actor that plays Joey. He asked me what I thought of the ending of the show. I told him that I thought the playwright left it unanswered in order for the audience to add in their own interpretation of how the family would have ended up. When I said that we all hope for a happy ending, he said, “Well, there isn’t always a happy ending”, which made me believe that he did not have much hope for the family’s future together.