By BRUCE DENNILL
Queer In The Queue / Directed by Jason Wheeler / Kippies, Market Theatre, Newtown
Positioned as a fringe production and making use of the Market Theatre’s Kippies space – it’s always comforting for theatre fans when more venues have productions in them – Queer In The Queue is part of a celebration of Pride Month in Johannesburg. It’s an intimate, personal piece, delving into the inner musings of a young gay man needing to go through the maddening frustrations of a government office as part of the admin involved in changing his surname to his new husband’s.
Reflecting both the small, independent status of the play and the company behind it and the setting and action in the script, the story takes place in a square of seats set around the edge of the room and uses only the venue’s roof lights, effectively recreating the mood of a Home Affairs waiting room – even if that doesn’t present many opportunities for dynamics in terms of the drama.
Solo performer Luke Ness is a tall, willowy presence with a cryptic accent, whose use of seats (marked off with tape so they don’t get sat in) between audience members is an early mechanism for bringing onlookers into the heart of the story. The script, while not sophisticated, plays its trump cards well, laying out the character’s concerns, both immediate (the stress of the context) and long-term (experiencing prejudice as a gay man). An important thread involves the unexpected discovery of compassion and connection in the queue, and how that shapes the young man’s perceptions of himself and his community.
It’s generally gentle stuff with a few moments of more intensive, suggestive insight into the character’s relationship with his partner, his family and with those he interacts with in everyday life. It probably won’t add too much to what most onlookers already know, but the story does underline the challenges still faced by gay men and women – particularly those still trying to determine the most profound parts of their identity.
Ness’ performance is engaging and entertaining, though the idea to use a breathy noise to mark each time he swaps between characters in the waiting room does occasionally get a little much, given that accent and posture changes are already making those demarcations clear.