‘When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man I went on the internet…’
These are the quixotic words spoken by drag queen Reverend Benson in Robert O’Hara’s explosively anarchic Bootycandy; a semi-autobiographical satire about growing up gay and black in suburban America.
Director Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu’s production is the Gate Theatre’s first show since the announcement of crippling Arts Council cuts, and O’ Hara’s fiercely confrontational meta-theatrical play – first staged in New York in 2014 - is a fittingly defiant riposte.
This is bold new writing that stuns the audience with a dazzling kaleidoscope of scenes spun out of multiple memories of O’Hara’s home town: his childhood church, dive bars, motels, even the nursing home where his beloved granny ends up.
The narrative refuses to be reduced to a simple pattern. Similarly, wild tonal shifts invite us to keep questioning the swirling whirligig of heightened, fragmented realities. Are the wigged friends gossiping in cartoonish mode about their friend’s choice of baby name - Genitalia - for real? Should we take the lesbian divorce ceremony based on oaths of hatred officiated by a lisping man in a gimp mask as pure fantasy? And what of the black writers’ workshop that culminates in the earnest, racially reductive white leader’s near demise on the dancefloor?
Themes of hatred, violence and despair emerge, anchored in the portrayal of O’Hara’s alter ego Sutter, played with impressive soul by Prince Kundai in his theatrical debut. He's equally convincing as an excitable child, love-struck teen or vengeful adult.
Choreography is key; frequently balletic as spoken language fails the characters. The gifted ensemble in spectacular retro gear, morph between characters. Roly Botha makes some stark transitions, worryingly fragile as Sutter’s closeted first love, then sickeningly creepy as the waxy-faced, silver-tongued pedophile who stalks him home from school;
DK Fashola’s comic timing is a total joy as she channels Sutter’s righteous mother insisting he must jettison his Jackie Collins collection; and Luke Wilson’s incarnation as the ever-imploding, exploding, ribald Reverend is reason alone to see this wholly unique, visual extravaganza.
Bootycandy runs at The Gate Theatre, Eversholt Street Camden until March 11. https://www.gatetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/bootycandy/
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