I was at a conference yesterday, a sort I’m not used to, a business one. Conferences I’ve attended in the past have been about theatre, politics, trade union matters, writing, and psychotherapy – all very different spheres of interest, all with groups of people who relate in different ways. (Greatest fun: theatre. Least social: writing.)
The most extreme example of business schmoozing I ever encountered was years ago, at a do in London for someone retiring from one of the biggest world publishing houses. I went there because I was fond of him and just wanted to say hello. But this was Big City Big Business: high-powered people introducing themselves with their name and company and agenda in the first few moments of shaking your hand firmly and smiling, as they had been trained to do in their management skills courses. It was exhausting, and I was reduced to a numb wreck by the end of it. I found it a draining experience to watch people drift away from me expertly when they could see I wasn’t a player, and consequently of no use to them. Yesterday’s conference however was far more social and not at all intimidating (a) because it was in Ireland, and (b) we were geeks, who are, in the main, an informal, genial lot. (Yes, I am coming out: I am a geek. I thought it was a phase, but it appears I’m not going to grow out of it. Will you still be my friend?)
I was in town afterwards and decided I’d have a pint and something to eat, while doing what geeks do after conferences: upload photographs, tag them and blog about the day. (I know, it sounds sad. But it’s really a social thing. Trust me.) Afterwards, I went for a piss and straight in front of me at the urinal was a poster saying that the 3rd annual Dublin Gay Theatre Festival launch party was happening in that very pub that very evening. So in a classic Irish way, I ended up staying, meeting loads of people, including old and new friends, and had a grand night of it.
A lot of things about Ireland have changed since 1993, when I left, and I doubt that anyone could have predicted then that Dublin would become an international centre for gay theatre, the only place in Europe to host such a festival, and that it would be so successful that companies from all over the world would be queuing up to attend. Dublin City Council provided funding for accommodating over 120 actors that are travelling from all over the world, The British Council have also helped out, as have arts councils in the UK, the Governor of Illinois Arts Fund and other arts councils in the USA, Israel and South Africa. The notable omission from the list of funding bodies is the Irish Arts Council, which has apparently been deaf to all appeals for support. The festival is at an interesting, crucial stage – it’s got an amazing list of people who offer their services voluntarily every year, to make it a success. But it now needs to be funded properly to last. Surely three successful years are enough to prove that it’s a winning formula?
I don’t have a qualm about supporting a festival concentrating on one particular dimension of human experience, such as minority sexuality. If one wants to encourage writers to address a theme, then such an event promotes excellence, at least in the medium-to long-term. However, I have to say that the first time I saw a “gay play” in Dublin in the early 90s, it was so bad it was embarrassing. It stretched my loyalties to breaking point as a gay actor, and it made me suspicious of the label “gay theatre” ever since. Amateur dramatics and voluntary choral societies and indeed karaoke nights are enjoyable for reasons that are not necessarily anything to do with artistic merit; but the thing about a bad play is that it is very difficult to leave in the middle of one, and that feeling of being trapped is very unpleasant.
There is no queerer playwright than Wilde, even now, and his brilliant subversive genius was, I believe, an inextricable component of his queerness, and vice versa. But that mix was unique to him; there is no generic template for a “gay playwright”, and certainly there is nothing that links being gay and being interesting. If we gays want to be “represented” fairly in the media, then look to a representational medium: television. Theatre is not about realism, in my book, and worthy political correctness can be, and indeed should be, death to the creative process. Wilde, Orton, Williams, Kushner, Albee, Fierstein and many others all have something in common, but they have far more that differentiates them, and their creative sparks were fanned to flame because they addressed universal themes in their work, and weren’t writing for any particular subset of humanity. But, that said, I wish the festival every success this year, and proper funding for next year.