Civil Sex

Freeman, Brian. Civil Sex. In The Fire This Time: African American Plays for the 21st Century. Ed. Harry J. Elam, Jr. and Robert Alexander. New York: Theatre Communications Group, 2004.

Civil Sex is a fascinating and informative play about African-American civil rights activist Bayard Rustin. It deals with his passion for activisim and more centrally the ways in which his sexuality got in the way of his work. The play wove interviews with people reminiscing about Rustin and enactments of his life in a strange and occasionally confusing temporal mix, but I feel like this would be clarified in performance.

Reviews complimented the ways in which each actor assumes various roles within the play, moving across races and genders in a style reminiscent of Freeman's earlier work with the PomoAfroHomos.

What is most clear about this piece is both Freeman's and his interviewees' respect for the subject. Rustin emerges from the play a fascinating and tragically underrecognized and excluded member of the civil rights movement. His sexuality, especially in the final tableau that unites him with a former lover and emphasizes his attraction to young white boys, has transformed from a dirty secret and barrier to his activism to an affectionate joke.