‘Parallel Games’ and Queer Memories: Performing LGBT Testimonies in Northern Ireland

This essay explores how the notion of ‘parallel games’ works to queer memory in two productions of Northern Ireland's first publicly funded gay theatre company, TheatreofplucK, led by artistic director Niall Rea: the testimonial monologue D.R.A.G. (Divided, Radical and Gorgeous) (2012), written by Rea, and the performed archive installation, Tr<uble (2015), written by Shannon Yee. As post-conflict memory works, both productions trouble a progressivist understanding of ‘moving on’ from the conflict: instead of memories being harnessed to the ethno-nationalist template established by the Belfast Agreement, the plays ‘move’ memory work in different directions at the same time, giving rise to a diverse set of emotions.

The Importance of Staging Oscar

Oscar Wilde was adopted as something like a posthumous writer in residence at the Gate Theatre in the 1930s, where all of his plays including the controversialSaloméwere produced. The identification between the theatre and the playwright was further strengthened by Micheál Mac Liammóir’s hugely successful one-man showThe Importance of Being Oscarin the 1960s, and again in the 1980s, under the directorship of Michael Colgan. This chapter considers key productions of Wilde at the Gate, particularly their sexual politics. It is argued that when Wilde was first produced at the Gate, his queer aesthetic had to be heavily coded; however, by the time of Stephen Berkoff’sSaloméin 1988, Wilde’s sexual politics could be staged more openly. More recently, however, with the emergence of an active gay theatre scene, the subversive charge of Wilde’s theatre has been somewhat eclipsed.

Whatever Happened to Gay Theatre?

With hopes for a repeal of Clause 28 poised for imminent realization or disappointment, a successful European challenge to Britain's policy on gays and lesbians in the armed forces, and an overwhelming House of Commons vote to equalize the gay ‘age of consent’, gay issues are high in the public consciousness. But to what extent are these political events being reflected in contemporary theatre? In this article, Brian Roberts considers the fluctuations in gay visibility, and asks what happened to the gay theatre that sprang to prominence in the 'eighties. He situates the best of present gay theatre work as standing in a critically defining role to mainstream theatre culture, not only through its political conscientizing of ‘queer’ and theatricality, but also in its opposition to an assimilationist gay subculture. Brian Roberts lectures in Drama and Theatre at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and is presently revising his book Artistic Bents: Gay Sensibility and Theatre for publication.