In 1966, a little-known queer revolt occurred during a police raid of Compton\u2019s Cafeteria in San Francisco\u2019s Tenderloin. The riot was the outcome of an extended campaign of bigotry, harassment, arrest and targeted assault on the queer community by San Francisco\u2019s police force.<\/p>\n
This is the setting for Fuse Theater Ensemble\u2019s newest production, Portland playwright Mikki Gillette\u2019s Riot Queens, a fictionalization of the human drama that surrounded Compton\u2019s Cafeteria in the months, weeks and days before the riot. \u201cIt\u2019s not biographical,\u201d Gillette says, \u201cbut I did base a lot of it on Susan Stryker\u2019s work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stryker, the historian behind the KQED documentary Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton\u2019s Cafeteria, uncovered the battle while researching trans topics during her own transition. She went on to create an oral history of the event, much of which informs Gillette\u2019s interpretation.<\/p>\n
Directed by Harper York (who also served as costumer), Riot Queens turns the audience\u2019s attention not only to the heightened scrutiny faced by the queer and specifically trans community during the Vietnam War era\u2014but also the ripples that continue today, all centered on the embattled Tenderloin\u2019s Compton\u2019s Cafeteria.<\/p>\n
The play focuses on fervent Dixie, Haley and Nina. Dixie, played by Niniveh Herrera, represents a new landscape for trans futures, unencumbered by raids, bigotry, fear and hatred. Haley, played with heartbreaking vulnerability by the brilliant Ethan Fielder, represents the fear held by community members desperate to cling to their relatively safe space, an all-night diner that reluctantly caters to the queens, hustlers and assorted riffraff passing through and\/or working the Tenderloin. Nina, a darling newcomer to the neighborhood played with an innate sweetness and delicate whimsy by Bryn Bollimpalli, is the romantic wedge between Dixie and Haley, a cantilever to both points of view. The cast is rounded out by Cosmo Reynolds in the dual roles of Jerry and Police Brute, and Tyler Hunt in dual roles as Police Brute and Jerry.<\/p>\n
It wouldn\u2019t be a Mikki Gillette play without a requisite love triangle, and Riot Queens delivers, bringing not just a lesson in queer U.S. history to the fore, but layering it in the realistic human emotions that erupt around issues of autonomy, security and identity.<\/p>\n