How Science Viewed Queer Life in the 1930s Is Explored in Provocative New Play

A new play by NYC-based theater company The Civilians takes scientific studies from the 1930s that looked at queer life with a pathological gaze and creates a "kaleidoscopic fantasia" that celebrates it. EDGE spoke with artistic director Steve Cosson.

With the world premiere of "Sex Variants of 1941 – A Study of Homosexual Patterns," NYC-based theater makers The Civilians delve once more into dramatically charged sociological subject matter. The troupe's artistic director, Steve Cosson – together with co-conceiver Jessica Mitrai and co-writer James La Bella – has adapted the 1941 multi-volume book, edited by George Henry, which took a scientific lens to queer people in the 1930s, subjecting them to medical and genealogical inquiry in ways that would seem indefensibly intrusive now, but – as Cosson tells EDGE – were progressive for the time.

The show's press notes call "Sex Variants of 1941" a "kaleidoscopic fantasia" that "[draws] on the study's explicit interviews, pseudoscientific analysis, 'medical' diagrams, and glossary of era-specific slang... [using] scenes, songs, and striking visuals to celebrate an undersung community – and subvert the pathologizing gaze of the medical establishment."

The show runs Nov. 14 – 24 at NYC Skirball Center. Billed as a multimedia experience, "Sex Variants of 1941" features original music and lyrics by Stephen Trask, Aaron Whitby, Marcha Redbone, and Michael Friedman, as well as visual projections by video game designer Attilio Rigotti. The source material (like the country's current politics) may smack of the 1930s, but there's a definite 21st Century aesthetic at work.

EDGE chatted with Steve Cosson to find out more.

EDGE: The Civilians created one of my favorite plays of all time, "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play." Was that something else you were directly involved in conceiving and developing?

Steve Cosson: Oh, yeah, yeah. I directed that one.

EDGE: I saw it in Boston, and it was fantastic.

Steve Cosson: I did not direct the one in Boston. No, no.

[Laughter]

EDGE: The Civilians' website says that you "produce investigative theater on vital social and political questions. The theme of medicalizing and pathologizing queer people seems very apt for this particular moment in our political and social history.

Steve Cosson: Indeed, I would say it is, yes.

EDGE: But the play has been in development in some way or another since the 1990s, hasn't it?

Steve Cosson: Not really in development since the '90s. The early '90s is when I found a copy of the book in a used bookstore and read it, and thought, "This would make an amazing play someday." The first thing I actually did with it was in 2015 – we did a one-night Joe's Pub performance, and had various composers write songs. We performed interviews from the book. I wanted to make a real show out of it as soon as possible, and it just took nine years.

EDGE: Were there times along the way that you started to feel like, "Marriage equality is here. There's more acceptance, and maybe this play isn't as urgent"? I mean, was there an oscillation happening there for you?

Steve Cosson: No, I don't think I ever worried too much about its contemporary relevance, because whatever was going on in the culture, there's always going to be something brewing when it comes to politics and the right finding scapegoats or issues to engage with because they are scary to people. The thing I think of first when it comes to this adaptation of the book is the historical side of it. There is documentation – interviews with people in their in their own words. There is very little documented queer history in that way.

Not only is there a lot that is invisible in the historical record, but I also think most people are under the misconception that before Stonewall everyone was in the closet and secretive, and LGBT culture didn't really come into being until after Stonewall. Once you actually get a glimpse behind the curtain and hear from people – in this case, they were interviewed in the in the '30s – it's a complete and total transformation of what you think the past is. It gives me a lot of hope, really.