NYTheatre.com Interview: Alex on ‘To Be Loved’

NYTheatre.com has posted its FringeNYC Previews; among them is a new interview with Alex DeFazio, author of To Be Loved. Check out the transcript below and be sure to visit NYTheatre.com for more previews!

NYTHEATRE: What is your show about and what can audiences expect when they see it?

ALEX: To Be Loved is a tragedy about how far one man will go to correct a mistake from his past. Seigen, a monk, is haunted by the death of his lover, a teenage boy. He believes the boy’s soul has been reincarnated in the body of a young female prostitute and desperately wants to run away with her, but their chances for happiness are small. The play takes place in a future where politicians have severed society’s ties to history, human beings are traded as possessions, homosexuality is outlawed, and a massive bomb has literally drained the planet of color. Seigen believes in a forgotten world of art, beauty and possibility. He is also a gay man. That his dead male lover would be reborn female is the most beautiful possibility he can imagine, but his quest to free her - and to love her as he would a young man - puts his ideals to the test.

NYTHEATRE: Why is your show pertinent to today’s times and/or why should your show be the choice for audiences to see?

ALEX: I started writing this play around the time of Bush’s “anti-gay” marriage amendment, so it certainly had a political impetus. The whole discussion surrounding gay marriage was (and still is) a reminder of how prejudiced so many people in this country still are. But what concerns me even more than homophobia are the subtle and not-so-subtle ways our world is growing darker, more violent, less sensitive to human life, relationships, and needs. As much as any of us wants our society to become more humane, I hope this play is pertinent because it asks, through the story of one very flawed man, if what is human in each of us can make a difference.

NYTHEATRE: Why did you choose to present this show?

ALEX: FringeNYC is offering us an amazing chance to reapproach this show from the bottom up, having seen what worked and what didn’t in an earlier workshop production. Our company (like most off off Broadway companies) finances our shows independently and hence can usually only afford one shot. This is not how theatre should be. What artists learn from seeing their work in front of an audience is immeasurable. It can make a new play grow wings, and we’re so excited to share that moment with Fringe-goers.

July 1, 2007 | Filed Under Media Sightings, Musings, Queer Art & World 

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