Arts & Entertainment
Dekkoo’s ‘Stranger Hearts’ a sensitive look at interconnected queer lives
“Stranger Hearts,” a new original series from queer streaming Network Dekkoo, is set to launch this weekend.
Created by filmmaker Kevin James Thornton (“How To Get From Here To There”), and described by the network as “thoughtful, sexy and deeply heartfelt,” it follows three queer characters from wildly different backgrounds, played by Amo (MTV’s “The Challenge”, “The Real World: Go Big or Go Home,” musician Matt Moran, and newcomer Qua Robertson Harper.
The series seeks to illuminate the connections that bind the diverse, disparate LGBTQ community together though the stories of three people whose lives are intertwined, although they don’t know it – yet.
In the first two episodes, we meet each of them: Andre, a shy young African-American man who lives with his mother and is struggling with his sexual identity; Luka, a gender non-conforming photographer who is broke and out of work to find a job; and Billy, a smooth-taking media mogul who runs an understaffed empire by day while cruising the leather bars at night.
The series introduces them briskly but succinctly in its debut chapter. Luka’s melancholy internal musings on turning 30 serve as narration while we follow the three through a day in their lives, each of them somehow trapped – knowingly or not – in a life that seems unsustainable for them. By the end of the first brief, introspective episode, we get the sense that something is about to break.
It’s in the second entry that the wheels begin to be set in motion; Andre’s mom finds his secret stash of gay porn, Luka’s fruitless job search leads him to make a desperate decision, and Billy faces a health crisis that will force him to change everything about his life.
It’s to creator Thornton’s credit that his show packs a lot of information into its first two installments and yet never seems strained or rushed. It reveals the details through careful, quiet observation rather than expository dialogue, and it flows smoothly through a documentarian cinematic style that is enhanced by the authenticity of its performances.
That authenticity is further bolstered by the casting; the three leading players are not the kind of ripped, cookie-cutter hunks that often grace queer stories on the screen, but actors that look like “real people.” That’s not to say they’re not just as attractive; indeed, the series, which looks in its early installments to be aiming for a welcome self- and sex-positive approach in its depiction of gay life, offers proof (if any were really needed) that “real people” are just as sexy as any magazine cover fitness model fantasy – and maybe even more so.
“Stranger Hearts” enters a market that is increasingly loaded with new LGBTQ content, and it might be easily overlooked in the sea of bigger titles from bigger networks with bigger stars – but it deserves not to be. It gives us an up-close, slice-of-life look at queer experience that not only avoids cliché, but delivers an affirming message while treating all of its characters with empathy and sensitivity.
The first five-episode season of “Stranger Hearts” will be available on Dekkoo beginning March 12, via iTunes, Google Play, Xbox, AppleTV, Xfinity X1 and Roku. In the U.S. and U.K., Dekkoo is also available via Prime Channels.
You can watch the trailer below.
Team DC, the umbrella organization for LGBTQ-friendly sports teams and leagues in the D.C. area, held its annual Night of Champions Awards Gala on Saturday, April 20 at the Hilton National Mall. The organization gave out scholarships to area LGBTQ student athletes as well as awards to the Different Drummers, Kelly Laczko of Duplex Diner, Stacy Smith of the Edmund Burke School, Bryan Frank of Triout, JC Adams of DCG Basketball and the DC Gay Flag Football League.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
The 2024 National Cannabis Festival was held at the Fields at RFK Stadium on April 19-20.
(Washington Blade photos by Michael Key)
Covering the @NatlCannaFest at RFK Stadium for @WashBlade . Stop by the LGBTQ+ booth and pick up a paper if you are here. pic.twitter.com/is7hnsaPns
— Michael Patrick Key (@MichaelKeyWB) April 20, 2024
Theater
‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
A ‘fully autobiographical’ work from out artist Adil Mansoor
‘Amm(i)gone’
Thorough May 12
Woolly Mammoth Theatre
641 D St., N.W.
$60-$70
Woollymammoth.net
“Fully and utterly autobiographical.” That’s how Adil Mansoor describes “Amm(i)gone,” his one-man work currently playing at Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
Both created and performed by out artist Mansoor, it’s his story about inviting his Pakistani mother to translate Sophocles’s Greek tragedy “Antigone” into Urdu. Throughout the journey, there’s an exploration of family, queerness, and faith,as well as references to teachings from the Quran, and audio conversations with his Muslim mother.
Mansoor, 38, grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and is now based in Pittsburgh where he’s a busy theater maker. He’s also the founding member of Pittsburgh’s Hatch Arts Collective and the former artistic director of Dreams of Hope, an LGBTQ youth arts organization.
WASHINGTON BLADE: What spurred you to create “Amm(i)gone”?
ADIL MANSOOR: I was reading a translation of “Antigone” a few years back and found myself emotionally overwhelmed. A Theban princess buries her brother knowing it will cost her, her own life. It’s about a person for whom all aspirations are in the afterlife. And what does that do to the living when all of your hopes and dreams have to be reserved for the afterlife?
I found grant funding to pay my mom to do the translation. I wanted to engage in learning. I wanted to share theater but especially this ancient tragedy. My mother appreciated the characters were struggling between loving one another and their beliefs.
BLADE: Are you more director than actor?
MANSOOR: I’m primarily a director with an MFA in directing from Carnegie Mellon. I wrote, directed, and performed in this show, and had been working on it for four years. I’ve done different versions including Zoom. Woolly’s is a new production with the same team who’ve been involved since the beginning.
I love solo performance. I’ve produced and now teach solo performance and believe in its power. And I definitely lean toward “performance” and I haven’t “acted” since I was in college. I feel good on stage. I was a tour guide and do a lot of public speaking. I enjoy the attention.
BLADE: Describe your mom.
MANSOOR: My mom is a wonderfully devout Muslim, single mother, social worker who discovered my queerness on Google. And she prays for me.
She and I are similar, the way we look at things, the way we laugh. But different too. And those are among the questions I ask in this show. Our relationship is both beautiful and complicated.
BLADE: So, you weren’t exactly hiding your sexuality?
MANSOOR: In my mid-20s, I took time to talk with friends about our being queer with relation to our careers. My sexuality is essential to the work. As the artistic director at Dreams of Hope, part of the work was to model what it means to be public. If I’m in a room with queer and trans teenagers, part of what I’m doing is modeling queer adulthood. The way they see me in the world is part of what I’m putting out there. And I want that to be expansive and full.
So much of my work involves fundraising and being a face in schools. Being out is about making safe space for queer young folks.
BLADE: Have you encountered much Islamophobia?
MANSOOR: When 9/11 happened, I was a sophomore in high school, so yes. I faced a lot then and now. I’ve been egged on the street in the last four months. I see it in the classroom. It shows up in all sorts of ways.
BLADE: What prompted you to lead your creative life in Pittsburgh?
MANSOOR: I’ve been here for 14 years. I breathe with ease in Pittsburgh. The hills and the valleys and the rust of the city do something to me. It’s beautiful, it’ affordable, and there is support for local artists. There’s a lot of opportunity.
Still, the plan was to move to New York in September of 2020 but that was cancelled. Then the pandemic showed me that I could live in Pittsburgh and still have a nationally viable career.
BLADE: What are you trying to achieve with “Amm(i)gone”?
MANSOOR: What I’m sharing in the show is so very specific but I hear people from other backgrounds say I totally see my mom in that. My partner is Catholic and we share so much in relation to this.
I hope the work is embracing the fullness of queerness and how means so many things. And I hope the show makes audiences want to call their parents or squeeze their partners.
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‘Amm(i)gone’ explores family, queerness, and faith
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