Paul Baumbausch says he is disabled. Yet he can walk, talk, hearand think just as well as anyone. According to Baumbusch, hisdisability is his sexual orientation.
“I’ve offended several people with this,” said Baumbusch, an18-year-old Weinberg freshman from McLean, Va. “I’m gay and Iconsider homosexuality a disability. I’m physically programmed towant things I can’t have. Ninety-five percent of the men I’mattracted to are physically incapable of reciprocating. It’s not amatter of taste or even a social or cultural issue. It’s abiological disaster of circumstance, and to me that’s adisability.”
Baumbusch’s “disability” has caused a lifelong romanticloneliness — a loneliness which inspires his award-winning talentas a playwright. This summer VSA arts, a nonprofit organization,awarded Baumbusch’s one-act script “The Changeling” the PlaywrightDiscovery Award of 2004. As part of the award, VSA is producing theone-act play at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts inWashington, D.C. Baumbusch described seeing the production Mondayas “the best day of my life.”
“The most flattering thing about seeing one of your playsproduced is knowing how many people have been inconvenienced,”Baumbusch said. “I couldn’t believe how much trouble they went tofor an assignment I wrote for my playwrighting class.”
This year’s Playwright Discovery Award accepted scriptsaddressing disability from middle and high school studentsnationwide.
“The Changeling” depicts a mother hosting a birthday party forher autistic son. As the act unfolds, the mother’s personalitytransitions from a cool and collected host to a hysterical andpowerless mother. The disabled son, however, never appears in theplay.
“I knew I was not a good enough writer to presume to write anautistic character,” Baumbusch said of his decision to leave theson out. “I decided to focus on the ramifications of the family.Autism is a paradoxical handicap that yields genius.”
Baumbusch was inspired when he visited a friend who has dealtmuch more “gracefully” with her son’s autism than his characterdoes. Baumbusch then created a “fantasy of what could have gonewrong and didn’t.” Several parents of autistic children attendedthe performance and said they could relate to the play’s maincharacter.
The motif of disability continues in “Palindrome,” an earlierone-act play that Baumbusch currently is trying to extend into afull script. The one-act version of “Palindrome” portrays agrandmother with Lou Gherig’s disease and her intense involvementin her granddaughter’s engagement. The grandmother, who uses awheelchair, has a romantic relationship with her grandaughter’sfiancee, but the couple is unable to have a normal physicalrelationship.
“There was a lot of syndrome shopping,” Baumbusch said. “I wastrying to find something that destroyed the body but preserved themind. As soon as I finished it I decided it deserved more pagesthan I had given it.”
The physically and mentally disabled characters in “TheChangeling” and “Palindrome” stem from Baumbusch’s view of his ownsexuality. By writing characters with disabilities rather than gaycharacters, he feels he is able to reach a broader and moreaccepting audience.
Baumbusch views his sexuality as a disability not because ofshame or an intolerant hometown; he simply is painfully aware thatbecause of his homosexuality, he will face challenges — romanticand otherwise — that others will not.
But despite that awareness, Baumbusch also clearly appreciatesthe creative inspiration his “disability” has given him. He has asincerity, an Old World thoughtfulness and humility one rarelyfinds in a college student. When you speak with Baumbusch you knowyou have all his attention. He takes the art of conversationseriously, weighing each question and considering his words withimpenetrable concentration.
“I think there’s an age, 15 or 16, when love affirms your selfworth or else the lack of love condemns you to insecurity,”Baumbusch said. “And if you are happy in those hormonal years thenyou can be an econ major. But if not you’re going to have to writeor compose to address those years for the rest of your life.”
After acting all junior year at his high school in McLean,Baumbusch transferred to Interlochen Arts Academy to pursue themore “creative” side of theater — writing.
Baumbusch views his writing as a direct and physical way toconnect with the audience. He looks up with a sudden intensity andfocus when describing his envisioned audience’s reaction:
“Chills, shortness of breath, tears, any visceral feelings ofpain. Literally my heart to their heart. I want their bodychemistry to be altered by what they’re watching.”
When not writing, Bauschumb spends his afternoons at UnicornCafe, feeding his appetite for information by reading newspapersand magazines.
And although Baumbusch writes for the stage, he credits most ofhis inspiration to movies such as “Vertigo.” He identifies bothwith Jimmy Stewart’s character in “Vertigo” and “Seinfeld”co-creator Larry David as depicted in the TV series “Curb YourEnthusiasm.”
“The two characters are extremely neurotic but one is neuroticin a Jewish lovable way and the other is neurotic in a suicidal andhomicidal way,” he said.
In high school Baumbusch benefitted from a supportive family andan accepting student body yet was continually disappointed in hissearch for love. He hopes that the “better odds” at Northwesternwill cure his loneliness. But would happiness bring an end to hiswriting?
“That’s the dilemma. But I would rather be happy and creativelyfallow than lonely and prolific,” Baumbusch said. “I don’t thinkboth are possible.”4
Medill sophomore Crystal Nicholson is PLAY theater editor.She can be reached at [email protected].