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.
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By SPENCER MACNAUGHTON, ISABEL STOKES, and BELLA SAYEGH | After appearing on the 11th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” the first season of “Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World,” the sixth season of “RuPaul’s All Stars” and now the 11th season of “All Stars,” Silky Nutmeg Ganache, known by many as the Reverend, is undoubtedly a legend.
Born and raised in Moss Point, Miss., Ganache bears all in this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton.” She speaks about her relationship with gender, her 100-pound weight loss, what it’s like living as a queer person of color in a red state and why she’s calling on allies to stand up for the trans community.
Patrons enjoyed a night out at the popular LGBTQ venue Crush Dance Bar on Friday, July 3.
(Washington Blade photos by Landon Shackelford)
Theater
‘My Favorite Sociopath’ debuts at Shepherdstown’s CATF
Gay playwright Aurin Squire’s take on D.C. journalism in the ‘90s
‘My Favorite Sociopath’
Contemporary American Theater Festival
July 10-Aug. 2
Shepherdstown, W.Va.
Catf.org
Discernment. It’s a thing some people have, explains playwright Aurin Squire, especially when you’re gay or Black in America (Squire is both).
“You instinctively know when the mob is teaming up for the best interests of the powers that be. You can feel it in the air.”
In his sharp new satire “My Favorite Sociopath,” Squire writes about life experiences but set in a different time and place: It’s the 1990s, early days of the 24-hour news cycle, and three ambitious journalism students are pursuing success in D.C.
And now, Squire’s play, along with other new works, are making their world premieres at the annual Contemporary American Theater Festival (CATF) at Shepherd University in historic, queer-friendly Shepherdstown, W.Va. (just a 90-minute drive from D.C.).
“All of my plays are queer in some way,” says Squire, 46. “This one touches on harmless and dangerous lies. The characters are on the spectrum sexually, and it’s interesting how all that falls out.”
And he’s given it a lot of thought.
“Already as a kid, it seemed to me that the rage against rap music and sex was coming from closeted people resisting their own urges and temptations. For me, it was interesting to see a witch hunt led by witches. Queer people can always call out a lie.”
Since September, Squire has also been working with a TV show about the tech industry set in Silicon Valley. He says, “It seems the general flow of the tech industry is that humanity and civilization is finished and it’s just about accumulating as many goods as possible before everything collapses. In fact, those who are profiting actually agree. But for those who disagree, they believe the solution is to build bigger gates, but activists believe we can stop this”
Yet, he’s learned from folks associated with the show. “Many say the quickest way to divorce yourself from any responsibility or regulations — smash and grab. Otherwise, you have to stop and think and regulate your desires for greed and power”
Squire possesses a penchant for pithy titles. He laughs, explaining the first thing he wrote as a student at Juilliard was “Obama-ology,” the comedy with contemporary message. While a lot of people liked the name, it didn’t necessarily vibe with the author. He concedes that he chooses names based on “easy to remember” and titles that won’t be easy to lose as a file.
Another is “Defacing Michael Jackson,” a coming-of-age dramedy set in rural Florida in 1984, specifically Squire’s native town Opa-locka, Miami, a fantastical place famed for its fanciful Moorish revival architecture.
Living in the shadow of exotic structures, he wasn’t particularly fazed. Squire says “It wasn’t until returning to visit after my freshman year at Northwestern University in Chicago that I realized how weird it was: When you grow up in a place, you take surroundings for granted no matter how over the top.”
Now based in New York (where for two happy years, 2017-2019, he shared digs with drag king Murry Hill), Squire returns frequently to Miami to be with family, but this summer has been filled with both work and travel.
Currently, he’s in Shepherdstown with CATF shaping up “My Favorite Sociopath.” Later this summer he will travel to South Africa for research, followed by a silent writing retreat in Santa Fe, N.M.
Much of Squire’s work reflects the Latino, African, Caribbean, African-American, and Jewish cultures he grew up around in South Florida.
When asked if today’s winds of anti-multiculturalism worry him, he replies, “No, because that’s going to pass. Most people don’t like, people are seeing the negative results of it, and the young people coming up despise it. White male gamers were tricked momentarily through the algorithms into voting against their own interests and they’re now seeing how it’s not working out for them.
“Conservatives always try to stop progress and eventually they always lose. It’s just a question of where we’ll be in the middle of the end of civilization before that happens. I’d like to hope we can turn the ship around before then.”
In addition to “My Favorite Sociopath,” CATF summer season features three other world premieres (Lisa D’Amour’s comedy “The Smoker,” “Refugee Rhapsody” by Yussef El Guindi, “Best Line Wins: A Play Inspired by the Improvised Lives of Elaine May & Mike Nichols” by Beth Kander) and “¡VOS!” by Christina Pumariega.
CATF runs from July 10-Aug. 2 in three venues on the Shepherd University campus: Frank Center, Marinoff Theater, and Studio 112.
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