Ron Vawter’s two-part solo performance was a double portrait of two complex minds and two opposing approaches to gay sexuality. Roy Cohn, written by Gary Indiana, was a fictitious adaptation of an after-dinner speech delivered by the lawyer Roy Cohn to the American Association for the President of the Family in 1976. Jack Smith was a portrait of the eponymous gay performance artist and filmmaker who was an influential underground figure in the New York arts community in the 1960s and 1970s.

The show ran as a work-in-progress during January and February of 1992, then in a revised version during the months of May and June. Over 2,500 people saw the production, and Vawter was awarded an OBIE for his performance.

Ron Vawter

Roy Cohn/Jack Smith

Manhattan

1992