Sarah on theater

A really good play (one of the best-written of the year) about the ladder-yanking two-trackness of the modern queer experience: the decision, which is not extended to everybody, whether to try to assimilate into (and be complicit with) the heterosexual hegemony. “You might be gay, but you’ll never be a faggot.” This is most prominently developed with a speculative story about the future sexual relationships of Prince George, who, it must be noted, is 12 years old in 2025. I was surprised to find that Prince Faggot (mostly) manages to justify this pretty offensive premise by treating it with tenderness & grounding it in the life experiences of the performers, who show their own childhood photos as they assert that a queer adult begins life as a queer child.

In the end, the hypothetical George may be gay, but it matters far less for his prospects than the plain fact that he is heir to the British throne. He has as much to lose as anyone possibly could in throwing his lot in with the struggling commoners, and who among us could resist making a selfish decision in his shoes? And yet he loses something valuable, too—“I am a part of something profound that you will never, ever know,” his one-time lover, Dev, admonishes him.

The point is extended in a series of semi-fictionalized interstitial monologues in which the performers relate their experiences of, for lack of a better term, lower-caste queerness. David Greenspan reflects on Larry Kramer, who was a prominent gay activist, attacking the community for not doing more to stop the spread of AIDS in the 80s. Rachel Crowl, a trans woman who transitioned in adulthood, grapples with resentment for young transitioners for whom she paved the way. N’yomi Allure Stewart closes the show by demonstrating how she earned the title of Princess of the Pier in the New York ballroom scene and indicting the audience in this glitzy off-Broadway house. “You were looking at a princess this whole time and you didn’t even know.”

The disappointing thing is that Prince Faggot gives away so much of what it earns by trying so hard to be provocative, especially with respect to nudity. (I had avoided seeing it until the very last performance because I had heard it was so explicit.) Surely there must be some way to broach these topics without outright pornographic speculation about a real-life child; it’s a very false equivalence to suggest that this is the same as the cultural expectation of heterosexuality-by-default, and we all know it. But, then, if you tsk-tsk at that, you’re part of the problem, right? Please. The playwright being smart enough to anticipate this objection doesn’t on its own refute it—in fact, it gives the play an extra shadow of exploitation.

Nevertheless, it is thought-provoking theater, well-made art that happens to have serious ethical concerns, and Shayok’s direction is killer.