Posted by Lyle on the Ultimate Brokeback Forum:
Monday, May 10, gave us a pure blue sky, white wispy clouds and mild temperatures in the hills of Griffith Park where members John (BayCityJohn) and Lyle had been invited as representatives of the forum to attend the first ever reading of the stage script of our very own forum book, Beyond Brokeback.
Greg Hinton is the supervising producer of the Out West series at the Autry Museum and is the one who adapted the script. He mentioned that he initially approached Annie Proulx about the topic of doing this same type of program with the letters and notes she must have received from the people this story and film touched but she expressed concern over matters of privacy.
Subsequently, he came across our book and discovered it contained the exact thing he was looking for.
The script was culled from the pages of the book and was conceived as a production somewhat like the play Love Letters where actors are seated behind small podiums and read the letters and thoughts of the people who wrote them. It was designed to be read by six persons, who were each given a name, although I don’t know if they are actual names from the book or not, and a narrator/announcer.
Greg greeted John and me as we arrived and we were there as his producing partner and the seven people, whom he described as "some friends and Autry employees," gathered at the Wells Fargo Theater. The seven included Tom Gregory, owner of the iconic shirts from the film, and William Handley, an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California, who was a panelist at last December’s Whatever Happened to Ennis del Mar? event and author of "The Brokeback Book," coming out next March.
From my perspective, having often read Beyond Brokeback, knowing many of the authors and as a participant of the forum, I didn’t think the reading was really going to affect me, but there I was listening to the stories, the poetry, the humor--listening to it read by voices of real people, and one couldn’t help but feeling it again; the true power of how the film has affected so many, in all its human variations.
The first reading clocked in at about 50 minutes. Many things were discussed that afternoon, like the possibility of getting some name actors to participate. Graham Beckel was mentioned. William Handley posited why not Jake Gyllenhaal? (Why not indeed!) Questions and suggestions were bandied about as one might expect in the initial stages of a project like this. The possibility of recording it for further airing was mentioned. (Like a PBS program or as a dvd extra.) Greg Hinton asked John & me if we thought a longer version might be warranted. Or both, a longer and shorter version. (Yes, both.)
The 5th Anniversary of Brokeback Mountain is surely going to be celebrated in fine form at the Autry Center this December, not only with a film screening, but with this event that will carry on the legacy of the film far beyond the Anniversary itself, and something of which the entire forum can certainly be proud.
It was a successful afternoon filled with the anticipatory promise of good things to come!
