“I Was There:” Hit the Wall by Ike Holter
by Megan Reichel
“Look upon me, motherfucker.”
We did: through flooded eyes, collective gasps, poetry snaps, voice-breaking cheers, hysterical laughter, proud whoops and hollers, and skin-stinging clapping.
The University of Iowa’s Department of Theatre Arts’ debut performance of the musical Hit the Wall by Ike Holter, directed by Bo Frazier, opened for its first night on January 31st, 2020 at the E.C. Mabie Theatre. Unshockingly selling out, the theatre was thick and full to the brim with the energy coming from the stage and the audience, a perfect balance of give-and-take.
The show begins with a mind-blowing overture from the live five-player band on a raised platform above the stage that prepares the audience for a performance that reflects the song’s intensity and chaos. Leading up to the notorious, five-day-long Stonewall riots in the hot summer days of June 28TH- July 3RD, 1969, Hit the Wall focuses on the relationships between Carson and Cliff, Peg and Roberta, and Tano and Mika, characters based on real-life activists, and how their paths intertwine after the death of gay icon Judy Garland, which played a role in the rising of the riots. The show in particular follows the events of June 27TH-28TH in Greenwich Village, New York, NY, beginning with the day of a service for Garland. Between the literally breathtaking jokes, woven into the lines, are the ways race, sexuality, and gender, thus racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia, interact with one another in society.
Kyle Braeseke, ensemble member, describes performing in the show and the grueling rehearsals leading up to it as “an incredible experience, the most important thing I have ever done.”
There is nothing more important than teaching and reliving histories of forgotten people and events scribbled out of the textbooks, especially when there are pieces of the puzzle that aren’t quite clear. In those five days, queers of all kinds—drag queens, transgender women of color, butch lesbians, gays from the streets and from the bars—fought against police brutality to protect their beloved Stonewall Restaurant & Inn and their right to be there as themselves, who they were: inside and out.
“Look upon me, motherfucker.” How could we not? The show’s brutal and raw (in every sense of these terms) honesty smacks each audience member across the face—with trash cans, Women Internationally Learning Divisiveness (W.I.L.D.) fliers, cigarettes, wigs, flasks, and tear gas, and all of the wrath of angry gays. It dares you to keep eye contact. While it can be uncomfortable and painful to experience a taste of the LGBTQ community’s tragically violent and violently tragic history, it has never been more necessary than now.
The show ended with a speech from Frazier, celebrating everyone present and mourning everyone past— those who were lost to the AIDS crisis and those who have been murdered by those harboring hate towards those who love and live in harmless and beautiful ways—driving home the show’s call to mourn and remember the dead. To celebrate what we have achieved and to fight for the people and rights we desperately need.
Mainstage productions have $5 tickets for students with ID cards.
Remaining Hit the Wall showings at E.C. Mabie Theatre in the Theatre Building:
Thursday, February 6, 2020 - 8:00pm
Friday, February 7, 2020 - 8:00pm
Saturday, February 8, 2020 - 8:00pm
Hit the Wall contains intense, realistic sequences depicting transphobia and homophobia, verbal and physical violence, police brutality, and physical sexual assault.