THE HARD EVIDENCE OF EXISTENCE (REVIEW)
By, Khevin Lee LaGrone

The Bay Area’s Black same gender loving community has a reputation for being either invisible or notoriously self- negating in several ways. I’ve always argued that it was a close-knit community full of creative people. “The Hard Evidence of Existence: A Black Gay Sex (& Love) Show” demonnstrated my point. The play showcased the Bay Area’s Black same gender loving community.
Producer/director Cedric Brown tapped into the artistic talent of this community to create a moving experience. Writers Stewart Shaw, Zakee McGill, Ramekon O’Arwisters and Cedric brought their stories. Performers Marlon Bailey, Robert Hampton and Da’Mon Vann brought those stories to life. Audio/visual specialist Keith Thompson pulled together the video footage, photomontages and music.
I watched the show thinking about how art energized and empowered both a community and its individuals. Once upon a time, the objectifying images of black men in white-oriented gay porn were an embarrassment to some Black men and a desperate, shallow "diversity" to others. In the opening slideshow of “The Hard Evidence of Existence,” the audience laughed at those images. This was evidence of how far the Bay Area’s Black same gender community has progressed.
But the play moved past mocking that stereotype of a Black same gender loving man in San Francisco. The stories varied from militant to loving. HIV has hit this community very hard and in this play an HIV-positive man is not stigmatized or banished to a sexless existence.
One of the most poignant moments in the play for me was the photograph of Rickey Williams who committed suicide last month. Rickey’s jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge shook the Bay Area’s Black same gender loving community, but got little attention in the mainstream media. A community must honor its own; “The Hard Evidence of Existence” did so in its remembrance of Rickey.
"The Hard Evidence of Existence" celebrates a community. It's a community that should be celebrated more loudly and often. Years ago, I heard someone ask why singer Luther Vandross, who was very rich and successful, couldn’t come out of the closet and announce he was gay (the question, assumes of course, that he was gay). Someone else answered that question with the questions: Come out to what? What community would be there for him? I wonder what Luther would have left “The Hard Evidence of Existence” thinking. Would he have found his community? Would it have given him what he needed?