The Culture of AIDS
[INTERVIEW]

It would be easy to say that AIDS activist and playwright Imani Harrington was destined to edit and contribute to an anthology of plays written by and about women of color and HIV/AIDS. Her theater background includes course work at the Cornell Institute of the Arts, and her training in psychology has made her a popular, outspoken panelist at AIDS conferences across the country.

One could say the same about co-editor Chyrell D. Bellamy, who worked on an AIDS team in Zambia in the 1990s, and, more recently, was the assistant director for the New Jersey Women and AIDS Network (NJWAN), an advocacy organization.

But to focus that much on their lives and accomplishments to date in the AIDS community would only detract from their most recent contribution: Positive/Negative, an anthology of plays written by and about women of color living with HIV/AIDS.

Harrington has wanted to do a project like this for some time. ?I realized that my own writing isolated me, and I didn?t want to continue to be isolated, I didn't want to do this alone,? she says. ?I was thinking about how to make my words not about me, because they?re not about me, just me. They?re a way of articulating nuances in my experiences, in other women?s experiences.?

Bellamy points out that the reasons why it?s taken so long for women, especially women of color, to be acknowledged as part of the AIDS epidemic are obvious: ?Women were occasionally mentioned at the major AIDS conferences and in studies in the 1990s, but most ?experts? were basically ignoring the fact that women can and do get this disease. It may have something to do with perceptions of how the epidemic originally spread in this country, but I think that as caretakers, mothers, and those who bring forth ?fruit? that it?s too frightening to think of women being exposed to this virus. It?s much easier for society to place HIV in an ?evil group? so to speak.? Hence, she adds, the importance of having works like this in the public eye.

Harrington agrees: ?[Women] are just not represented in a way I?d like them to be. We're just not part of the landscape, even though we really are.?

Which, of course, is what makes a collection of plays and poems like this so terribly important. But not, according to Harrington, because of the opportunity to be vocal about this issue, but because of how those who see or read these plays will change their perceptions and conversations about HIV/AIDS and the people who are infected. ?I firmly believe that theater can be a powerful medium for social change,? she says. ?Yes, the regular theater-goer will see the play, applaud, leave, and go to bed. There?s no dialogue. Some say people don?t go to the theater for social change. I disagree. I believe we can use plays, and not only these plays, in a discursive way?to explore socio-political possibility. We can create plays to reflect real experience, to encourage critical thinking, and to engage the audience in a dialogue about the themes reflected in the plays, themes that are frightening and hard to talk about.?

Bellamy agrees: ?Theater is a place where people can explore change in a non-threatening way. Theater, particularly ?theater of the oppressed,? addresses the concerns of the greater community. These plays are so different from other AIDS plays, much more raw. We're not trying to downplay the issues, but to place more focus on them. That?s what this book is really about.?

The works in Positive/Negative are divided into three sections: Love/Relationships, Sex/Sexuality, and Danger/Death. Specific plays stand out in this reader?s mind: Black Power Barbie by Shay Youngblood, and, most memorably, The Watermelon Factory by Alfonso Ramirez. Positive/Negative is a powerful read; I can only imagine what it would do for a live theater audience.

The editors do say that a few of the plays in Positive/Negative have been staged. Harrington says that, in general, audiences were deeply moved by the productions. ?It?s hard, because nobody wants to be changed socially?reality, true reality?doesn?t get a lot of airspace. But the plays that were produced at the San Francisco AIDS Theater Fest sparked a lot of dialogue. The audience that went, though, wanted insight through watching the plays, and afterwards they were encouraged to talk or write about how the plays affected them.?

Harrington comments that the way the book is presented?with the discussion questions and group exercises in the back?makes it ideal for ?colleges, community centers, people in their own homes, people who desire to write, for all of them to have a relationship with these plays.?

Bellamy agrees that Positive/Negative?s educational potential is the most important. ?These plays are a way for people to talk about and explore the world of HIV, to get people into a space inside themselves where they can do so freely. At that level, I really hope these plays can take on a life of their own.?

Rhomylly B. Forbes is the Book Review Editor for A&U. She interviewed artist
Rob Anderson for the July issue.

August 2003