There are moments during a show when you realise with
sickening awareness that you are not its target audience. ‘Blue Wizard’ hit me
with that fact somewhere between ‘I come from a crystal planet where everyone
is gay’ and ‘I only eat cocaine and jizz’.
As much as Nick Coyle’s ‘Blue Wizard’ has been jazzed up
since its inception at PACT centre for emerging artists in 2013, it still feels
like a distinctly Fringe Festival show. The acting is patchy, the energy is
lacking and until Coyle starts to integrate puppetry into the performance, the
show itself is flat and thin.
‘Blue Wizard’ attempts to appeal to its mainly gay male
audience with snide remarks every now and again, with Coyle’s gold lame
underwear as costume and its content is squarely aimed at its demographic.
Although I never felt uncomfortable, mostly I wasn’t amused either. The Blue
Wizard, one of many hair coloured wizards from his home planet, known for
partying and sexual freedom, lands on Earth as ambassador after winning a
competition on his home planet. His comet crashes and left with just a wizard’s
egg that takes 2000 years to hatch, he finds himself in an abandoned tip
(perhaps Earth of the future). The egg hatches, the Blue Wizard becomes nursemaid and we realise his dilemma of time, love and sacrifice.
It is the play’s ending that almost redeems the one hour
show. That and Steve Toulmin’s sound and Damien Cooper’s light show. Ralph
Myer’s has crafted a design that is versatile and able to surprise us with what
can emerge, be lit, found and created. In fact, if the first three quarters of
the show didn't rely on someone who could act and with had more substantial material, the performance would have been more enjoyable for all of its
audience, not just the gay male contingent.
However, the men in the audience were amused and love the
‘readings’ and ‘shade’ done by Coyle and there was a level of androgyny that
gave it an intrigue. The problem with the show is that it was half-cooked and if not for the technical prowess at play, the thin
nature of the show would have been doubly exposed.
Hello Jane. I would like to point out a particular bias to your comments regarding Blue Wizard. Any time you deride a show for speaking directly to a minority audience, such as a largely gay audience, you reinforce the notion that mainstream theatre is straight theatre, and speaks to the majority of audience members. I reject that. Theatre is up for grabs, and when I buy a ticket, I also buy the right to occupy any subject position I wish. I'm a heterosexual woman and I found this show to be remarkably moving. How on earth did I manage to invest in this show as a straight woman? Because it's up to the individual to make their own meaning. Fine, you didn't enjoy the show, but please don't suggest it was because the playwright is a gay man that employed gay male humour (whatever that is) and spoke exclusively to a gay male audience. How then do gay men respond to Arthur Miller, David Mamet, Chekov? Straight theatre for straight people, right? Speaking to their straight demographic, using straight emotions and telling straight stories - nothing for gay folks there (and I am of course using "super gay irony" to make my point here). Of course a gay man can speak to me about my human experience. I'm capable of seeing the world from something other than my own narrow experience; thank god, or else so much of the canon would exclude me. Enough with labelling theatre as gay, queer, women's, or otherwise. Please don't shut down the potential of "peripheral" theatre to speak to the culture at large. The effect, intended or not, is to privilege the work made by straight white middle class men.
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