“I have returned to God the best gift He ever gave me. But I cannot say I’m sorry for the sin.”
The themes of religion, love, and longing highlighted in this line exemplify the emotional journey that is on display throughout Seattle Opera’s first ever LGBTQ+ main-stage production.
The show began and ended in the same setting: a bare stage occupied by a lone park bench. But the energy in McCaw Hall had changed drastically by the closing scene: tears were flowing and audience members were on the edge of their seats. This production allowed the audience to progress alongside the onstage characters through an emotional epic that gave new meaning to the title of Fellow Travelers.
The text follows two men in 1950s Washington, D.C., highlighting their sexual and romantic relationship at the peak of the McCarthyism era. When they meet, Timothy Laughlin is a young, optimistic journalist who came to D.C. hoping to make a difference, while Hawkins Fuller is an established bureaucrat working in the State Department.Â
The title of Fellow Travelers is derived from a term used during this era to mean those who sympathized with Communist causes. At the time, queer people were viewed as vulnerable to Communist infiltration, and thus a national security risk, because of the possibility of blackmail regarding their sexual identity. This led to the Lavender Scare of the 1950s, which saw an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 government employees fired on suspicion of their being LGBTQ+.
Past the groundbreaking nature of the production, it also delivered from an artistic standpoint. English-language opera is not very common, and it was interesting to see how the libretto combined realistic speech patterns with operatic tradition. The moving set allowed for many different scenes to grace the stage, transporting the audience from a stark interrogation room to a warm studio bedroom in seconds. This fluidity juxtaposed the personal and political in an intuitive way, underlining the themes of the production.
The two leads are double-cast, and I had the opportunity to see the duo of Colin Aikins and Jarrett Ott in their Seattle Opera debuts. Ott’s portrayal of Hawkins Fuller was a standout of the night – specifically, his emotive facial expressions added detail to the relatively simple text and made the character feel much more realistic.
In my opinion, where this opera shone brightest was in its portrayal of the complexity and humanity of the characters. Neither of them are easy to put in a box.
Tim is painted as sensitive and naive and does not make his love for Hawk a secret between them. He also, however, is dedicated to Joe McCarthy’s principles of anti-communism and American values, as well as to his personal Catholicism. He wears a cross necklace under his clothes but removes it in moments of romantic intimacy. Hawk, on the other hand, stands more physically imposing than Tim, and his implied experience with men combined with his age paints him as the more emotionally uninvested of the two. For most of the production, he is painted as someone who sleeps around, cruising through younger men in D.C. while maintaining his political position. But in the end, it is his being in love that not only dooms him but dooms the relationship. Hawk believes that the only way for Tim to have a happy life is to be free of him, and in a horrifying turn of events, reports Tim for homosexual tendencies and gets him blacklisted from holding a government job.
The effect of complexity within the opera made the repercussions of the Lavender Scare feel deeply personal. This can perhaps be best summed up by the closing scene, where Timothy leaves D.C., his back to the audience, and the backdrop lights up with a collage of faces of real people who were fired from government positions during the Lavender Scare. In the moment where the character feels most alone, we are reminded how many people this fictional story was true for.Â
This production in Seattle was the first installment of the opera’s national tour to commemorate the 10th anniversary of its creation. Arguably, the story hits closer to home now than it did in 2016, with attacks against the queer community ramping up under the current presidential administration. A later stop on the tour was meant to take place at Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center, but the creative team behind the opera withdrew it following Donald Trump’s takeover of the institution.
In times like these, when political harms of the moment seem most poised to affect marginalized populations, it is important to be reminded of our history. Pieces like Fellow Travelers offer a comforting thought that we have faced adversity before and have collectively found ourselves on the other side. When you feel alone, you can remember the faces of history that have overcome the same challenges. Chances are, there might even be an audience in the future watching a story just like yours.