PULP PALS Playwrights Linda Chapman (left) and Kate Moira Ryan flank Beebo’s director Leigh Silverman.

Photo by Dixie Sheridan

When Ann Bannon penned her series of 1950s and ’60s lesbian pulp-fiction classics—sexy, fast-paced tales about Greenwich Village women whose “dark and troubled loves could flourish only in secret,” according to a book jacket—sapphic NYC was a mighty different place. Homosexuality was categorized as a psychiatric illness, and most dyke bar patrons were deeply closeted. They were part of a scandalous underground culture—one where a lesbian could actually be arrested for not wearing at least three items of women’s clothing.

Now,  a trio of dramatists are bringing those books to life onstage, convinced that the stories will resonate with today’s liberated audiences. The one-act play, The Beebo Brinker Chronicles, is a condensed version of three Bannon novels: I Am a Woman, Women in the Shadows and Journey to a Woman. It’s the latest production from the Hourglass Group, adapted by Kate Moira Ryan and Linda S. Chapman and directed by Leigh Silverman.

“Initially, I thought, This is fantastic! It’ll be a terrific romp—a camp, sexy, crazed theater experience,” says Silverman (Well). “But what really emerged was not the camp aesthetic, but the story of people moving to New York and not knowing who the hell they are and trying to figure it out. That was very compelling. And it felt very universal.”

Playwrights Chapman (Gertrude and Alice: A Likeness to Loving) and Ryan (25 Questions for a Jewish Mother, Cavedweller), friends and theater colleagues since the ’80s, decided upon the Beebo tales as the perfect joint project back in 2002. “We would meet over dinner and take the books apart, going through them meticulously and breaking the stories all down,” Chapman explains. They agreed to focus on four recurring characters—college-age lovers Beth and Laura, butch heartbreaker Beebo Brinker (to be played by Anna Foss Wilson) and their gay pal Jack Mann (to be portrayed by the inimitable David Greenspan)—and to tighten nine years’ worth of plotlines into a theater piece packed with plenty of love, sex and soul-searching. “It means we had to cut out a lot of juicy material,” Chapman admits. “But we really tried to preserve Ann’s language, era and ethos onstage.”

It was a tall order for the writers—and for the director as well. “How to find the right tone is really tricky,” Silverman explains. “It’s a lot easier to send something up. What’s harder is to do something that’s funny, effervescent and profound, all at once.” Her hope, she adds, is that “from the moment it starts, you get on that breathless train that you get on when you read the books. They are very hard to put down.”

Bannon—who was “thunderstruck” when Ryan and Chapman initially contacted her about adapting her novels—says she has been nothing but pleased with the handling of her material. “I was thrilled! ,” recalls the Sacramento author, now 75, about witnessing  the first NYC read-through in 2004. “It was goose-bumpy to hear lines I’d written nearly a half-century ago, spoken by young actresses and constructed by gifted playwrights.”

The author (whose real last name is Weldy, though she still prefers to use her pseudonym), was a Philadelphia newlywed—she divorced and came out many years later—when she discovered the lesbian pulp novel Spring Fire by Vin Packer. “I thought, I can do this,” she recalls. She wrote to the author, whose real name is Marijane Meaker, and received advice, encouragement and a lesbian tour of the Village. “I couldn’t have had a better mentor.”

Bannon, who is working on a memoir, hopes that her stories will resonate with audiences who may not be aware of the pressures faced by gay women in the 1950s and ’60s. “I think they tell a history of the social constraints within which lesbians had to live,” she says. “But there was also a fun side—how the bar culture worked, how tight those friendships were, and also how thrilling they were, because it was all so dangerous.” And the timeless part, she adds, is that “when people meet and fall in love, it isn’t really so different today—especially when you throw in that, for young lesbians, there is still anxiety about coming out, and about the friends and family who will turn away.”

The Beebo Brinker Chronicles runs Thu 27–Oct 20 at the 4th Street Theater. Bannon and the play’s creative team speak at the Center on Wed 3, hourglassgroup.org/beebo.html.