06-04-2004, 01:25
Lynne Cheney's still-remembered 1981 lesbian romance novel, "Sisters," was feted Monday night in a special performance by the "Lynne Cheney Players" - to the delight of an audience of liberal East Village types.
The performance at the New York Theatre Workshop was part of a celebration of left-leaning radio personality Laura Flanders' new book, "Bushwomen: Tale of a Cynical Species."
Yesterday, Flanders told Lowdown that Cheney's novel "is a breathy, gothic romance, horribly written. It's celebrating lesbian love and promotes the value of preventative devices, condoms, to women who want to remain free. It features a woman who has unmarried sex with the widow of her sister - all this by Lynne Cheney, the culture warrior of the right."
Monday's crowd of 200 - which included actress Janeane Garofalo - laughed throughout the satirical staging.
Choice scenes adapted from "Sisters" included one in which two female characters write to each other: "Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement."
One of Cheney's characters swoons to a Sapphic love letter: "How well her words describe our love - or the way it would be if we could remove all impediments, leave this place, and join together ... Then our union would be complete. Our lives would flow together, twin streams merging into a single river."
Vice President Cheney's wife has been silent on the hot-button issue of gay marriage, although their 34-year-old daughter, Mary Cheney, is openly gay. President Bush has come out in a support of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.
"Here's a whole book where she gloried in lesbian love affairs," Flanders said. "The hypocrisy is rank."
The performance at the New York Theatre Workshop was part of a celebration of left-leaning radio personality Laura Flanders' new book, "Bushwomen: Tale of a Cynical Species."
Yesterday, Flanders told Lowdown that Cheney's novel "is a breathy, gothic romance, horribly written. It's celebrating lesbian love and promotes the value of preventative devices, condoms, to women who want to remain free. It features a woman who has unmarried sex with the widow of her sister - all this by Lynne Cheney, the culture warrior of the right."
Monday's crowd of 200 - which included actress Janeane Garofalo - laughed throughout the satirical staging.
Choice scenes adapted from "Sisters" included one in which two female characters write to each other: "Let us go away together, away from the anger and the imperatives of men. We shall find ourselves a secluded bower where they dare not venture. There will be only the two of us, and we shall linger through long afternoons of sweet retirement."
One of Cheney's characters swoons to a Sapphic love letter: "How well her words describe our love - or the way it would be if we could remove all impediments, leave this place, and join together ... Then our union would be complete. Our lives would flow together, twin streams merging into a single river."
Vice President Cheney's wife has been silent on the hot-button issue of gay marriage, although their 34-year-old daughter, Mary Cheney, is openly gay. President Bush has come out in a support of a proposed constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage.
"Here's a whole book where she gloried in lesbian love affairs," Flanders said. "The hypocrisy is rank."