On the Offensive
Abe Rybeck, The Theater Offensive's artistic director, tells Joe Antoun about bringing a Puerto Rican mother, a Jewish drag queen, and the Immaculate Infection to the Boston Center for the Arts.
Yolanda in Immaculate Infection
Immaculate Infection is an adventure story about a widowed Puerto Rican mother and her first day attempting to get treatment for HIV. When Yolanda runs into Mary Cohn ("maricon" is Spanish for faggot), a Jewish drag queen and long time survivor, they seem like oil and water, but they soon learn about themselves and what they can offer each other as they face the horrors of loss and the threat of death. Issues of class, race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, language, and cultural tradition get tangled up in their tale of human independence and survival.
Immaculate Infection was conceived while Rybeck was working as an AIDS activist in Costa Rica, where the largest HIV populations are heterosexual women and gay men. He became fascinated with the cultural differences between the two demographics and the different needs of housewives with HIV and positive gay men. "The struggle between the two groups is fascinating and powerful and familiar," he says.
The collaborators began working on the piece a year and a half ago. They did workshops with HIV positive adults and kids that explored how different cultures deal with the struggle. "We didn't use their stories," Rybeck explains. "We used the texture of their lives--we used their relationships." The early development of the piece came by way of working with the AIDS Action Committee, Boston Living Center, and Casa Iris, an agency started by a woman who felt she was not being served by AIDS services. "I learned a lot off the bat. A lot was learned around sharing food. Sharing food is a key image in Immaculate Infection."
Rybeck's activism goes back to the beginning of the AIDS crisis, and has taken on many artistic forms. "Like many people, I denied as long as I could muster. It dawned on me that if someone walked in with a gun and threatened to shoot my friends, I would do something. I was working at Cambridge Food Co-op [now part of Harvest Cooperative Markets], and realized that my contribution had to be more than putting a little sign on the pumpkin seeds stating that they helped boost your immune system." So he quit his full-time job and dedicated himself to queer theater.
With the United Fruit Company, the predecessor to The Theater Offensive, he would do safe-sex guerrilla theater in gay cruising areas. "It served its purpose better than a stage, and much better than sitting in an antiseptic room putting condoms on bananas." He used these experiences while working as an activist in Costa Rica, where HIV is a large problem. He ran safe-sex and theater workshops, traveling back and forth over a three-year period. This culminated in the first Costa Rican gay theater troupe. And from the seeds of the Costa Rican experience sprang Immaculate Infection.
Rybeck's work over the years has resulted in many awards, both as an artist and an activist, including a 1999 Elliot Norton Award, an AIDS Action Committee Unsung Heroes Award, an award for individual excellence from the Greater Boston Business Council, and Peace and Justice Award from the City of Cambridge.
As an artistic director, Rybeck is aware of the need to sell an AIDS play. "People see the issues as tired, but the issues are as real as ever and as tough as ever. Our expression and art is what needs work." He adds, "The series of scenes which are supposed to be in an AIDS show are all missing." Immaculate Infection, Rybeck says, is "not a comedy, but very funny--not a tearjerker, but a very emotional show."