Shane arrives in Sydney, and finds employment in a Kings Cross bottleshop. He is, perhaps, your average 19 year old from Goulburn, rural N.S.W.; wide eyed, bushy tailed, and beset by the bright lights of a big city that is tantalising in its potential, but also contains dark secrets.
But Shane is over-friendly, to the point of being excessively naive. He gives liquor away for free and views chance encounters in the workplace as an opportunity to meet other people. That these other people are always male and homosexual appears insignificant to Shane. Instead, he strikes up a friendship with the party animal Will and readily accepts the fatherly embrace of a gentle old queen named Peter. Of course, Shane is completely unaware of the sexual tension preoccupying both relationships, or so it appears. But his apparent need for casual friendship cannot conceal what is a prohibitive desire for the flesh: prohibitive because, as this play progresses and hidden motives are revealed, it becomes clear that Shane is ambivalent, if not tormented, by his emerging homosexuality.
Given half a chance though, Shane and Will engage in an act of mutual masturbation. But not before an awkward attempt at anal sex, during which Will unwittingly transmits genital warts to Shane, resulting in Shane's doctor describing his untreated arse as one that has blown up like a beanbag. The relatively harmless STD becomes in Shane's imagination a pox-ridden metaphor for what he believes is his diseased sexual identity. Consequently, he threatens Will with the same excessive violence that Shane's hopeless brother, Ben, has perpetrated upon him. Further, Shane seeks consolation in the father-figure Peter. But when Peter instead wants to get it on, Shane's self loathing results in a similar violent outburst. Here, Strangers in Between makes the point that acute homophobia is a problem particular to the individual. That is, fear, self-loathing, hatred and prejudicial violence are in no way relative to one person having a genuine sexual attraction toward another. Whether homo or hetero, any sexual attraction between mature individuals should be thought of as an acceptable and quite normal expression of human desire. Of course, we all know that the reality of such an expression has been, and continues to be, something very different...
Even so, Strangers in Between is not simply a gay issues play. As a script that sometimes resembles a well-written and witty rendition of The Restless Years, it does however transcend its narrow concerns. On the skids in Kings Cross, Shane defines himself in relation to Ben, his sexually abused and therefore abusive brother. Perpetually self-medicated, while trying to atone for his abhorrent behaviour and keep the family together, Ben attempts to persuade Shane to return to Goulburn; the site of both boys' abusive pasts. Instead, Shane rejects Ben's proposition that his homosexuality is a direct consequence of an earlier act of pedophilia. In doing so, he simultaneously becomes accepting of his own identity in relation to a given community. More generalised in its conceptual aspirations, this is where the power of Strangers in Between is fully realised. Male or female, homo or hetero, black, white or grey, human beings are gregarious creatures who have, since prehistoric times, always found definition in a sense of community. Shane, Peter and Will are no different. It just so happens that the community within which each finds solace, in this instance, is one often unfairly demonised as 'Homosexual'.
Strangers in Between
Writer: Tommy Murphy
Director: Ben Packer
Performers: Aljin Abella, Bruce Kerr
& Cameron Moore
Set & Costume: Micka Agosta
Lighting & Sound: Ben Watts
& Govin Ruben
Stage Manager: Amy Bagshaw
Producer: Laura Milke Garner
July 23 - August 16, The Storeroom, Melb.
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