Stonewall: 'We're still fighting'

In New York in 1969, gay men were obliged by law to wear at least three items of clothing "appropriate to their gender". On the beach, they were not allowed to don swimming trunks that were in any way "suggestive". At the disco, they had to dance at least two feet apart from each other. The police enforced these regulations all too enthusiastically: they would raid gay bars and beat up men just for wearing make-up.

The clientele of the Stonewall Inn, a down-at-heel drag bar in Greenwich Village, put up with this sort of repression for years. But, one steamy summer night in 1969, the drag queens finally put down their lipsticks and put up their fists. When a police chief burst into the bar and ordered his colleagues to "bust that fruit for looking at me funny", the drag artists snapped. Unleashing decades of pent-up fury, they fought back with extraordinary ferocity.

As the denizens of the Inn shouted "gay power" and piled into the police, a riot raged non-stop for three days. It was a passionate yet bizarre-looking struggle, as 2,000 drag queens battled more than 400 officers – not for nothing has it been dubbed "the most glamorous act of civil disobedience in history". The Stonewall Riots changed forever the way society treated gay people. It is why this country's campaigning gay rights organisation took Stonewall for its name.

Stonewall, a new play by Rikki Beadle-Blair that opened last week at the Pleasance in Edinburgh, recalls the moment the global gay rights movement was born. The piece, an adaptation of Beadle-Blair's script for the 1995 movie of the same name, recounts the story through the eyes of La Miranda (played by Alexis Gregory), a drag queen who drips glitter and glamour.

La Miranda possesses the wit and style of a latter-day Bette Davis. When her besotted new boyfriend asks her, "When did you first know you were homosexual?", La Miranda replies: "The day I opened my eyes, looked around my mama's womb and started redecorating."

I'm sitting in on rehearsals for Stonewall at the Actors Centre in central London. Beadle-Blair, who also plays the seen-it-all-before drag queen Bostonia, is directing the proceedings in a red glittery leotard, fishnet stockings and gold lamé heels, all topped off with a set of wild dreadlocks. His pre-rehearsal pep talk is as flamboyant as his costume. "I want you all to ask yourself loads of questions about your character," he tells the cast. "What's your best-ever kiss? What underwear are you wearing? Who would you like to duet with? At the moment, your characters are feeling their way down the birth canal and having a peek outside to see if they're ready to be born."

After a full run-through, Beadle-Blair and his cast head to the theatre bar. The director has swapped his spangly dress for a barely less ostentatious turquoise vest and glitter-trimmed jeans. He explains why, nearly 40 years on, the Stonewall Riots continue to resonate. "The more I found out about the event, the more proud I became of what those protesters achieved. For me, they're up there with Mahatma Gandhi and Rosa Parks. The Stonewall Riots represent one of those seminal moments where someone stood up and said 'No! You're not going to treat me like that any more'."

Gregory chips in: "For gay people, Stonewall changed the world. Those protesters wouldn't take it lying down – and they were prepared to risk their lives for their belief. It's incredibly inspiring."

According to Beadle-Blair, "gay liberation only happened because of those riots. A year afterwards, the world's first Gay Pride march took place, and it went on from there. Liberation for gay people means liberation for everyone. Why? Because it means everyone is free to express themselves."

Beadle-Blair, who also wrote and directed the provocative Channel 4 series Metrosexuality and won the Sony Award for his Radio 4 documentary The Roots of Homophobia, continues: "A high proportion of the Stonewall protesters were dirt-poor black drag queens. There was no one lower than them in society. Drag queens are even looked down on by other gays, who fear that they might be tarred with the same brush. Drag queens carry the label of 'freaks'. But these protesters were not freaks. They were brave people who fought back against oppression and stood up for their rights."

But hasn't the gay community's battle for acceptance been won? Why do we still need to be reminded of an episode from 38 years ago? "History does not get passed on down the generations," the writer says. "Some children these days are not even taught about the Holocaust. Steven Spielberg is absolutely right when he says that every child should learn about it. But in the 21st century, many of us are self-indulgent, hedonistic consumers caught up in our own worlds. There is a terrible danger that people merely forget history."

Beadle-Blair has hit his rhetorical stride. "We have to learn from the past. Did you know, for instance, that the term 'faggot' derives from the Middle Ages? When religious zealots used to burn witches, they'd lay homosexuals around the witches' feet in order to start the fire. A faggot is the piece of wood you use to start a fire."

No one could argue with the need to heeding history's lessons. However, isn't there still a danger that Stonewall will only appeal to one, relatively narrow audience – that it is preaching to the converted? "My job is to say to people from whatever background, 'you're not alone'," says the director, adding that he believes the play will strike a universal chord. "I'm hoping that when people watch Stonewall, they'll be thinking, 'thank goodness, I'm not the only one who's ever wondered where he fits in'."

The play runs the risk of sounding like a gay-rights manifesto, but Beadle-Blair hopes that Stonewall will be first and foremost entertaining. To that end, the play focuses on the sparkling lives and repartee of the drag queens. "What's our unique selling point? Glitter," the 44-year-old writer says with a smile. "We're intending to glitter the whole of Edinburgh. Everything in the show is glittery – even the jockstraps. You're frightened now, aren't you?"

He continues by expressing a hope that, "While you're being entertained, you'll also be informed, but almost by accident. You learn much more through fun and fascination than you do through dictation and duty. Entertainment is a Trojan horse. Once we've enticed you into this world of glitter, we'll sneak out and tell you a few things that you didn't know before."

The songs play a major part in the drama, and the writer describes them as "a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. Cabaret was a big influence on me. In that show, you're looking at the rise of Nazism but having a great time along the way. You can educate and entertain at the same time. Why not have everything? That's what the play is about, accepting your different sides – frivolous and political, male and female – and bringing them together. You can be deep and shallow at the same time. Just because it's pretty, doesn't mean it's not smart."

With the introduction of civil partnerships and the lowering of the age of consent for gay people, society seems to have become far more tolerant. As far the producers of Stonewall are concerned, though, the fight is far from over. "Certain media battles have been won, but around the world homophobia is still rife," says Beadle-Blair. "Homosexuality is still illegal in 30 countries and is punishable by death in 12. Just last year two boys aged 15 and 16 were executed in Iran for being gay. And in many countries, homophobia is not just tolerated, it's part of the culture. In Jamaica, for instance, songs about 'killing the batty man' are really popular.

"Even in this country, outside the chattering classes homophobia is still a big problem. If you're gay in the UK, you're four times more likely to commit suicide than a straight person. A man called Jody Dobrowski was battered to death by homophobes on Clapham Common two years ago. And if you even hold hands with another man on, say, a council estate in Hackney, you're likely to be abused and assaulted – that's happened to me. I've been attacked and chased by men with baseball bats. It's as if we say to young people, 'If you're gay, you don't deserve the same rights as your straight brother'."

Beadle-Blair lets out a weary sigh. "The struggle goes on, and Stonewall continues to be relevant. It's a piece about people who didn't have a voice in the past, don't have one now, and – if we're not very careful – won't have one in the future."

'Stonewall' is at the Pleasance, Edinburgh (0131-556 6550) to 27 August