Nona Shepphard: Here Come the Brides
What happens when Jeni, a closeted London attorney, and her longtime lover, Val, a former activist hiding her radical past, finally face no legal obstacles to getting married? That's the dilemma that British playwright/actress/director Nona Shepphard presents in The Marriage Bed, now playing at the Sanford Meisner Theatre through November 19. Shepphard Val and co-star/producer Tali Friedman Jeni decided to bring the two-person play to New York after a successful production last spring at London's Drill Hall. Shepphard's varied background includes authoring 40 plays, including works for young people that have been performed around the world. She also teaches a popular "Shakespeare in Performance" course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art that attracts students from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. Below, this multitalented theater artist describes how her cousin's same-sex wedding helped inspire The Marriage Bed.
After the Civil Partnership Bill came into force in the United Kingdom on December 5, 2005, many gay couples rushed to be the first to get "hitched" in their local area. My cousin Sarah and her partner Tess were first in line in Camden, and thus the town hall in North London was jammed with the most unlikely assortment of guests, from the very conservative Lancashire crowd in full wedding finery to the left-wing Jewish London bunch in Bohemian casual, a best woman in full leather and a best man in a pink tuxedo.
Sarah and Tess wore ball dresses in suffragette colors—Sarah in purple and Tess in emerald green—their mothers wore hats and did not speak to each other, I read a 16th century poem by a woman to her lady love, and Tess's rabbi friend blessed the couple, sang and almost danced, so full of zest was he. The registrar and her assistant appeared delighted to officiate but were unsure of how everything was supposed to go. The brides were half an hour late, and Tess cried when they made their vows, as indeed did many present. At the end of the ceremony, there was a tumult of cheering and clapping. Champagne and smoked salmon at the Town Hall were followed by many hours at a local Italian restaurant, and a damned good time was had by all.
What interested me about this issue to the point that I felt I would like to write a play about it was the storm of debate the passing of the bill had inspired in the gay community: Bedrooms all over the country were ringing with argument, heart-searching, tears and cheers. Clearly all this was not about whether so-called "gay marriage" is a good or a bad thing; the justice of giving equal rights to committed same-sex couples is self-evident, and every gay person rejoiced when the Bill became law. Indeed, it caused very few ripples in the country as a whole and was more embraced than not. But it also opened up a huge array of emotion-packed questions that gay people had never had to think about before:
Do I want to make a commitment? Why are you not asking me? Don't you love me enough? Do we want to get married? If so, how? Do we want to make a big splash? If so, what sort of splash? Shall it be the pink limousines, or shall we walk? Shall we have caviar or alfalfa on rice crackers? Shall it be the fishnet tights and the dangly earrings or the jeans and T-shirts? Why do we need to ape heterosexual customs in the first place? Shall we invite my mother? If she says no, it will make me feel really awful and spoil the day. Do we need a written commitment to our relationship? Isn't our desire to be together enough? Shall it just be a straightforward signing with two witnesses? Shall we invite the whole world? What happens if the whole world—or at least some key people in it—doesn't know I'm gay? Hasn't the women's movement shown us that that marriage is an oppressive, patriarchal institution that imprisons and commodifies women? Do I want to be formally tied to another person?
Some of these questions apply to everyone, no matter what their sexual persuasion, and some are clearly gay-specific. What I wanted to do was make two women of different ages, different classes, different cultural backgrounds, different politics and different attitudes fight it out in one bed—and see what happened. Though The Marriage Bed is set in London, I was encouraged by many Americans who saw the original production to bring the play to New York because of its universality. I was told it would be the one of the first artistic expressions on this subject, and a very timely one since the debate in the United States is whether to allow gay marriage at all, never mind what happens afterward.
First and foremost, I want people to see a story about two human beings, beautifully told, to see an intimate situation that moves and amuses, informs, illuminates and affirms. I hope very much that The Marriage Bed will lend support to the movement for making same-sex partnerships legal. But more to the point, where on earth could be better to spend time than New York in the fall?