Last Saturday, an all-star cast composed of people like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Martin Sheen, Kevin Bacon, and more, gathered in Los Angeles for a reading of 8, a play by Oscar-winning writer Dustin Lance Black that was directed by Rob Reiner. But you didn't need to pay a fortune to get a ticket to this event - it was streamed live on YouTube for all the world to see and is still available for your viewing pleasure at this link.
So what cause could bring such a host of celebrities together in one room? Why, gay marriage of course. The play is a look at the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights (AFER) in 2010 to overturn Prop 8, the constitutional amendment that banned same-sex couples from marrying in the State of California. Ultimately, AFER won the battle and Prop 8 was deemed unconstitutional. But the trial was not allowed to be broadcast to the public. However, the transcripts of the trial are in the public domain and that's where Dustin Lance Black comes in. He decided to craft a play out of the transcripts of the closing arguments in this historic trial and thereby reveal to the public what exactly took place. And the result is 8, a play that is more riveting than you would expect from a courtroom drama and also abundantly hilarious.
The cast of this production is spectacular, and frankly I think most of the hilarity ensues not just from their pitch-perfect line readings, but also because we know who these people are in real life. When Jane Lynch, a well-known married lesbian, is playing Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization of Marriage who is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage, the audience can't help but laugh at the absurdity of that bit of casting. About an hour into the play, John C. Reilly arrives as David Blankenhorn, one of the two witnesses for the defense, and hysterically crumbles under cross-examination when it is made clear that he is a hypocrite who even went so far as to mention that same-sex marriage was alright in the book that he authored. And when George Takei plays a witness for the defense who insists that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, incest, and pedophilia because he read that on the Internet, you cannot blame the audience for devolving into laughter. And yet, this is all the more hilarious because these are the actual words spoken in a courtroom. The people who were happy to speak up on television and advertise their views that same-sex marriage should be outlawed were unable to maintain these views when they were under oath, forced to speak only the truth, and give actual facts and evidence. No wonder they didn't want the public to see the actual trial.
At the curtain call, Rob Reiner calls several people on stage, including the original lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in this case. One of them made the very astute point that if this trial has originally been broadcast, it would probably have aired on C-SPAN where no one would have bothered to watch it. But now, this play has been broadcast worldwide with such a stellar cast lending voice to the words of this real-life drama that hopefully more people will take notice of it and will understand how and why Prop 8 was overturned. It was a fair and just ruling, where the defense was thoroughly unable to mount a coherent case as to why same-sex couples shouldn't be allowed to marry.
8 elegantly demonstrates that there is no case against same-sex marriage, and no one understands that better than the very people who claim to be so against it. So watch this play. It will move you and amuse you and if you weren't so sure before, maybe you will be now. Same-sex couples deserve marriage equality. The End.
So what cause could bring such a host of celebrities together in one room? Why, gay marriage of course. The play is a look at the case filed by the American Federation for Equal Rights (AFER) in 2010 to overturn Prop 8, the constitutional amendment that banned same-sex couples from marrying in the State of California. Ultimately, AFER won the battle and Prop 8 was deemed unconstitutional. But the trial was not allowed to be broadcast to the public. However, the transcripts of the trial are in the public domain and that's where Dustin Lance Black comes in. He decided to craft a play out of the transcripts of the closing arguments in this historic trial and thereby reveal to the public what exactly took place. And the result is 8, a play that is more riveting than you would expect from a courtroom drama and also abundantly hilarious.
The cast of this production is spectacular, and frankly I think most of the hilarity ensues not just from their pitch-perfect line readings, but also because we know who these people are in real life. When Jane Lynch, a well-known married lesbian, is playing Maggie Gallagher, the president of the National Organization of Marriage who is vehemently opposed to same-sex marriage, the audience can't help but laugh at the absurdity of that bit of casting. About an hour into the play, John C. Reilly arrives as David Blankenhorn, one of the two witnesses for the defense, and hysterically crumbles under cross-examination when it is made clear that he is a hypocrite who even went so far as to mention that same-sex marriage was alright in the book that he authored. And when George Takei plays a witness for the defense who insists that same-sex marriage will lead to polygamy, incest, and pedophilia because he read that on the Internet, you cannot blame the audience for devolving into laughter. And yet, this is all the more hilarious because these are the actual words spoken in a courtroom. The people who were happy to speak up on television and advertise their views that same-sex marriage should be outlawed were unable to maintain these views when they were under oath, forced to speak only the truth, and give actual facts and evidence. No wonder they didn't want the public to see the actual trial.
At the curtain call, Rob Reiner calls several people on stage, including the original lawyers who represented the plaintiffs in this case. One of them made the very astute point that if this trial has originally been broadcast, it would probably have aired on C-SPAN where no one would have bothered to watch it. But now, this play has been broadcast worldwide with such a stellar cast lending voice to the words of this real-life drama that hopefully more people will take notice of it and will understand how and why Prop 8 was overturned. It was a fair and just ruling, where the defense was thoroughly unable to mount a coherent case as to why same-sex couples shouldn't be allowed to marry.
8 elegantly demonstrates that there is no case against same-sex marriage, and no one understands that better than the very people who claim to be so against it. So watch this play. It will move you and amuse you and if you weren't so sure before, maybe you will be now. Same-sex couples deserve marriage equality. The End.
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