written and performed by
Michael Twaits
|  |
Michael Twaits’s one-man show – which first appeared at the Oval House Theatre in 2007 and has now come to the Trafalgar Studios as part of the London Pride festival – is a meditation on being gay.
Or, at least, that is what it starts out as. Instead, the real point of the show is that we are all many different things.
Yes, Twaits may be gay, but he is not simply ‘a gay’, and the show is not predominantly about Michael, the homosexual, but about Michael, the person.
|
|
Over the course of the 70-minute play Twaits explores the various facets of his being by
narrating several days in his life. He cruises Soho on Friday night, brunches with girl friends
on Saturday, spends time with his mother in Bognor Regis on Sunday, and returns to work
on Monday for another boring day in the office. He uses a variety of genres to explore his
points, including disco and cabaret acts, a formal lecture setting, and video installations that
flash up news of gay hate crimes or landmark legislation.
Not that any of this would be obvious from the opening act. Twaits bursts on in full drag
singing ‘Holding out for a hero’, and proceeds to clamber over audience members, hand out
Pinky’s vodka to everyone, and lead the entire audience in the drinking game, ‘I have never’.
All this is tremendous fun, but I was left wondering if I could face an entire show maintained
at this frenetic pace.
But I didn’t have to. As Twaits then makes clear, his ‘Lady M’ persona is just an act, just
one small part of him, and the rest of the show examines what else there is to the man. We
learn that he can be deemed offensive when really he is just encouraging people to think;
we see him questioning whether liberty for homosexuals has been achieved when gay hate
murders still occur, and asking whether every new ‘freedom’ granted for gays really gives
him greater privileges or simply controls him more.
Very cleverly, Twaits employs a variety of genres in which to explore his points. He
performs ‘He had it coming’ from Chicago to present the ‘homophobic’ stances of
people in our present day Cabinet, and to describe his experience with someone who called
him a ‘faggot’. A deeply serious scene sees him writhing about the stage dousing himself
with water, as he tries to come to terms with how a boyfriend who wanted to spend the rest
of his life with him can suddenly declare ‘I don’t want to be with you anymore’.
In spite of all this, the play does not always hit the mark. This is partly because its
universal message that we are all many things becomes lost as it focuses so much on
just one man. Of course, this is Twaits’s method for making a wider point, but the result
sometimes feels overindulgent and does not make it easy for the audience to feel that the
show is in any way about them as well. It is also because, while the play does cover many
bases concerning Twaits’s life, it does not take us to any areas that we couldn’t perhaps
predict, once we have grasped its general argument. In addition, as Twaits runs through his
weekend to show the different facets of his life, in spite of his amusing interaction with the
audience, it all feels descriptive rather than analytical.
Nevertheless, as Twaits finally dons a blond wig and frilly black frock to sing and recite a ‘poem’ he wrote, it remains hard not to be moved by this show, which has a great number
of merits.
|
