DOPE QUEENS takes us to real places inhabited by characters inspired
by real people, grappling with hardcore real-life problems tempered by practical
survival strategies masterfully (and humorously) explored by Playwright Director
Grafton Doyle in his dark comedy about three misfits living hard on the margins.
The backdrop of DOPE QUEENS is real. If you are heading to an upscale
mall or to a well-known San Francisco theatre or museum, you may well quicken
your pace to pass quickly through the gritty streets of The Tenderloin District,
notorious haven for prostitutes, drug dealers, and transients. The TL is also on
the National Registry of Historic Places.
It is a diverse place with a long history as a center of alternate sexualities
predating even the Castro District. It’s the site of historic confrontations such as
the Compton Cafeteria riot that took place in August of 1966 when police tried to
arrest a popular drag queen. This uprising initiated the formation of the Gay
Activist Alliance, and predates the seminal Stonewall Riots in New York City by
two years.
Doyle sets his play in The Loin because it’s also a place of second
chances with the possibility of redemption. When night falls in the TL,
transgender women can find acceptance, belonging -- and work! A 2016 study
showed that sex workers who identified as transgender women and trans women
of color were adept at overcoming discrimination while working the streets of the
TL in the sex trade.
(FYI, the other big employer of transgender people happens to the U.S.
Military, with an estimated 15,000 active duty, and an estimated 138,000 trans
veterans, despite President Donald Trump’s March 2018 memo banning trans
people from military service.)
If you aren’t reading this, you are probably looking at the set, which is a re-
creation of a room that also exists in real life. It’s located on Polk Street in a
Single-Room Occupancy hotel. Such rooms can be rented for short terms,
usually on a week-to-week basis. Known as S.R.O.s, these hotels can be the
most affordable choice for new immigrants, low-wage earners and transient
labor. This type of housing can make all the difference in the lives of recovering
addicts and alcoholics, domestic abuse survivors, and folks just down on their
luck struggling to get back on their feet. The character of Goldie is besotted by
such a place. For her, it’s chance at a real home, a good place in which to nest
and create a family of her own choosing. And here’s the million-dollar question --
Can a romantic idealized notion of the chosen family become a reality?
And here’s another million-dollar question:
Can this seedy and blotch-stained room be a real home?
A typical S.R.O. is a single 8 x 10 foot room with a small washbasin, no
kitchen, with a shared toilet, and showers down the hallway. Rules usually
restrict occupancy to two people. Which forces residents to sneak in extra friends
or relatives -- an idea Doyle uses as an effective story complication in the play,
when the transgender character of Angel, after a stint in jail, arrives to stay.
Can Angel and Blake change their lives and live their dreams? Will they?
These are questions posed by the play, and the playwright has us rooting
for them to succeed.
