With Oscar Wilde as its spiritual father, the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival aims to inspire theatre-goers with its mix of drama, comedy, cabaret and opera, writes Quentin Fottrell
THE FIFTH International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival is not all about people who, by either the luck or the fate of the stars, are gay. Similarly, the writing is for and by gay and straight too. It is an equal opportunity employer and is open for all. Just so you know.
The logo for the festival has co-opted Oscar Wilde with a green carnation stuck between his teeth. He is the patron saint. And in fairness, he would probably not bat an eyelid at Knotty Together, Njo Kong Kie's Canadian opera about gay marriage.
Just as Wilde has inspired generations of theatre-goers, founder Brian Merriman hopes this theatre festival with its 35 Irish and international productions of drama, comedy, cabaret and opera in 10 city-centre venues, will do the same.
The two weeks of all manner of shows will culminate in a conversation with Tony, Emmy and Pulitzer award-winning US playwright Terrence McNally in Project Arts Centre, plus the Irish premiere of McNally's Corpus Christi. The play recasts the greatest story ever told as a gay Jesus living in 1950s Corpus Christi, Texas. It opened in 1998 in New York to bomb threats and protests, and was initially cancelled because of death threats.
"It's the only one of its kind in the world," says Merriman who, incidentally, played Wilde in 2000 at his centenary. "There are local gay theatre festivals in New York and Columbus, Ohio, but there's none with this breath of international participation. This festival concentrates on new writing after 2000, in the 21st Century, and asks: 'Is there a culture here? Is there a voice? And, if so, what is that voice saying?' Is everyone still concerned with writing about the shock of 'I'm coming out?' "
Hmmm. Are they? "Those plays don't make it into the festival," Merriman adds. "The gay angst plays don't make it either. They are the ones that blame you for the death of their lover, blame their mother, blame the audience and everyone else."
How about Fergus Ford's Shackled? Two men in handcuffs? Haven't we seen this kind of mallarky a million times? Actually, no. Both men are straight. One can't remember what happened the night before, while the other knows a lot more than he is letting on.
"This is about how one straight guy uses homophobia to overcome another straight guy," Merriman says. "Homophobia has an impact on straight people, too, and leaves them powerless if they feel they might have been involved in something gay."
If you have seen the movies with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Toby Jones, you will want to see Bob Kingdom's Truman Capote Talk Show. Kingdom pulls it off under tough conditions: he is forbidden by Capote's estate to use any direct quotations. "Everything is written in the style of something he'd said. It's a two-man show because, ultimately, it merges our lives. He committed suicide in instalments on TV talk shows."
Elsewhere, Lance Corporal Jeff Key, a US marine, went to Iraq, didn't like what he saw, came back, came out on CNN, got an administrative discharge under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy of gays in the military, and took his brand of patriotism on the road. In his production, The Eyes of Babylon, Key makes his European premiere in the festival. He joined the US army after 9/11, but he now believes the war is both immoral and illegal.
Carolyn Gage's The Countess and the Lesbians is about three women rehearsing a play about Countess Markiewicz, but less political is Alison Martin's Bed Death, a murder mystery weekend with four lesbians.
"Bed Death is full of high drama," says Martin. "I've been intrigued by murder mysteries after watching them on TV over the years. It provides a good setting for the friends to explore their relationships. There are two exes and one of them doesn't want to be there."
In Confessions of a Mormon Boy, Steven Fales, a sixth-generation Utah Mormon, takes his autobiographical one-man show on a journey through ex-communication, divorce, prostitution, drugs and - deep breath - redemption.
The festival had 130 submissions from five continents, and ticket sales soared 150 per cent last year. Merriman says there is a need for a specifically gay festival: "It deals with feminism, masculinism and sexual identity. The answer is in the demand."