Portraits, Plays, Perversions
Last Updated on Tuesday, 22 June 2010 10:17 Written by admin Friday, 16 April 2010 04:46
Birimisa: Portraits, Plays, Perversions
Editorial Reviews
Review
George Birimisa captures the essence of America’s treatment of gays and lesbians in the 1950s. He is a skilled playwright who revises the techniques of the classical drama. He draws the audience into the plot as it unfolds to experience the reality and emotions of its characters. –Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, reviewing The Man With Straight Hair
George Birimisa’s Daddy Violet is an abstract, delightful piece that successfully combines two old antagonists: realism and surrealism. –Dan Sullivan in the New York Times
This story of the American lower classes had a gritty, inescapable realism that brought to mind the Genet of The Thief’s Journal. –L.C. Cole in New York Native, reviewing Looking for Mr. America
Product Description
In a career spaning over 50 years, George Birimisa has inspired generations of playwrights, actors, and audiences to find the truth.
This volume features some of Birimisa’s own favorite works, including ten of his plays and excerpts from his satirical novel S&M Gym.
Also included are prose portraits by colleagues, friends and rivals.
About the Author
George won the Harry Hay award in 2005 for his decades of inspiration to young activists and writers. He has received numerous literary and theatrical awards, including a 2008 Lambda Literary Foundation book award for his contributions to Return to the Caffe Cino, published by Moving Finger Press.
George began writing during the Great Depression, trying to tell his story in prose: a story of abandonment by his mother, the death of his Communist father, years in a Catholic orphanage, and brutality at the hands of a homophobic society. After writing five very bad novels he wrote a play with a gay theme. Insecure about his lack of formal education, he had discovered an art form in which he didn t have to worry about his grammar. With excellent reviews in the Village Voice and the New York Times for his Daddy Violet; a world of creativity opened up to him. George moved to San Francisco in 1980. His Pogey Bait and The Man With Straight Hair were produced at Theatre Rhinoceros, and he starred in Looking for Mr. America, at Josie’s Cabaret in San Francisco and La Mama, E.T.C. in Greenwich Village.
George is the proud facilitator of Bruised Fruit: An Intergenerational Writing Workshop in San Francisco.
At 85, George is busy at work on his memoir, Wildflowers.