In a year when the most powerful nation on Earth finally saw sense and changed what it meant to be seen as an equal, Grin Theatre’s Queertet makes its fourth foray into the world of theatre with four new stories that tell of hope, love and even the element of danger at the Unity Theatre over three nights from Wednesday 22nd to Friday 24th July.
Queertet has been described as the jewel in the crown of Grin Theatre’s output, a rare company that talks the talk when it comes to delivering stories of a L.G.B.T. nature and a company that really sings with pride of all it has achieved in the city.
Entertaining, a great success story in the heart of Liverpool and delivered with care and tremendous affection, Queertet is a great night out for all.
Behind the story though is Kiefer Wesley Williams, a man who has bought it all together for the last four years and who with sterling support in the past, namely from Simon James and Helen Kerr, has given new writers their voice in an area of theatre still cut short of its full potential. This year is no different as Mr. Williams is joined by Christopher Sutherland in bringing the four new plays to the attention of the Unity Theatre audience and in Anthony Proctor, who directs one of the plays, the standard is already mouth wateringly high for what promises to be three great nights of theatre.
Ahead of Queertet, I was able to catch up with both Kiefer Williams and Christopher Sutherland and talk to them about the shows, superheroes and the reality of America’s life changing policy on the acceptance of marriage within the gay community.
Congratulations on your forthcoming Queertet, you must be thrilled?
KW: “It’s an absolute thrill to be in our fourth year and with a new production team as well and it’s full speed ahead. I’m really, really excited about it.”
You’ve obviously been in there from the beginning, you’ve seen it grow, you’ve seen it mature and take on a whole life of its own!
KW: “Absolutely, from early days at The Lantern when it was early days and we were just learning how to put on such an endeavour in terms of the production as we put a hell of a lot into it but every year since, we’ve increased the production values. We’ve increased the amount of work people have put into it and we’ve reaped the rewards and now we’re at the stage when we can actually say that Queertet is the jewel in the crown of Grin Theatre. I’m absolutely privileged to be working with people like Chris, people like Anthony Proctor, Sam Erskine, Stuart Crowther and Jim Leighton who are the directors and a multitude of fantastic actors who’ve taken Queertet and my vision to the stage in order to celebrate everything LGBT and initially to say that Grin is about queer theatre, we embrace that and that’s what it’s about.”
Congratulations on being part of the new production team!
CS: “I think when I first kind of joined, obviously Grin had been around for about five years and I had this legacy to uphold, maintain and evolve as well beyond what my predecessors had done before. So when Keifer talked about Queertet, a couple of my friends had been in it before and said what an amazing experience it was, there was never a bad word about Grin Theatre so when I heard it had been at The Lantern before that so I knew that wouldn’t do it justice so I had to kind of secure The Unity. That’s where Queertet needs to be. It’s the most suitable venue and probably the best place for it. I think in knew as well that in the past the production team hasn’t been as extensive. I think I knew that to kind of evolve we needed to expand our team to make sure that rather than having myself and Keifer running around doing everything we should have more people to dedicate jobs to ensure that it could be bigger and better than what it actually is. I think we got another producer on board and we got a couple of in-house directors, we got technical teams in as well so this means when it comes to the actual shows, we can do the best Queertet show that we can do, they keep on getting better and better.”
With Queertet being in its fourth year, are there any surprises within the plays this time round?
KW: “This year, there are quite a lot of surprises! The first play is called Pulse by John Mains who wrote the play last year and this time his play is a pastiche on science fiction, it’s about Liverpool’s first gay superhero and gay villain. The superhero is called Pulse and the villain is called Throb and there’s a gay ray involved and it’s Throb’s mission to turn the audience queer and it’s Pulse’s mission to stop this from happening. It’s very quirky, very stylised in a very cartoon-type of way and there’s lots of sound effects, soundscapes, whatever.
The second play is a lot darker, I did this on purpose, chatting with Chris and Stella who is Chris’s second in command, we thought that it would be nice to sort of go a little bit darker on this play, it’s called The F**k. It’s more of a physical theatre piece; it’s written by Stuart Crowther. It’s got lots of movement in it, very sparse dialogue, very cutting, very explicit. It’s about sexual roles within a man on man relationship so that’s quite explicit. Then after the interval, we settle down to nice warm-hearted, feelgood comedy-type plays. We’ve got the first play by Frankie Lavogue, who’s a young writer, her play is called Bye and it’s basically describes a lipstick, lesbian romcom set at a bridal party where the bride suddenly decides she fancies the pants off her best mate who’s also a woman of course. Finally, we’ve got Mate’s Rates. It’s been written by someone called Wes Williams – I don’t know who that is! That’s basically about four friends at a party, 4am on a Saturday and I’ll just leave it at that! It’s very funny and very quirky.”
Introducing the plays this time we’ve got burlesque dancers to introduce each of the plays, we’ve got Minxy Minx, Tilly Mint and Rock Heart and they are going to do some very risqué introductions, not verbally but physically – they are going to introduce each play and God help people who are in the front row!”
The one that catches my ear there apart from yours that is, is Pulse because I’m going to ask you a very off the wall question if I may because I know that you’re very heavily into your superheroes, Marvel Comics and all that. You love your superheroes! Who is your favourite superhero?
KW: “It’s got to be the one and only Batman, it can’t be anybody else. I mean my partner at the moment is playing Arkham Nights and he’s just totally engrossed in it. Every time I go into the room I get carried away in the gamplay and I’m not even playing it. I’ve got a massive library of Batman stuff, I’m a big fan of the Archam Asylum as well.”
Do you have any favourite superheroes?
CS: “It’s really strange when it comes to superheroes for me, I think if I go for the nostalgic feel, I’d go for watching Tim Burton’s Batmans, Michael Keaton is probably my favourite Batman, I like the Christian Bale ones but I think the nostalgia gives them the extra points. I think my favourite one was the second one, Batman Returns with Michelle Pfeiffer and Danny DeVito, that’s my favourite. I think because I grew up in the 90s when there was a lot of cartoon superheroes a lot – I watched the Amazing Spiderman series when I was younger so I prefer that Spiderman to the newer ones.”
The reason why I’m asking this is that knowing that you’re fans of the superhero and everything, how pleased are you or not that you have DC and Marvel have suddenly embraced this whole genre of gay, lesbian or transgender superheroes within their worlds?
KW: “I just think it’s a positive step forward for LBGT and why not?
They’ve recently ‘outed’ the character of Iceman in the X Men.
KW: I think getting back to Pulse, it’s brilliant that we’re taking the gay into superhero territory; we’re making it more of a pastiche and fun, that’s how it should be. It shouldn’t be all about doom and gloom, it should be about embracing the mythology of the superhero, the reality of being gay, bisexual, transgender or whatever.”
One last question if I may, it may sound as if I’m going off at a tangent but there is a connection, again talking of American superheroes and comics, you must be very pleased with the news in America last week about accepting gay marriage?
KW: “I’m absolutely thrilled, for our American cousins and friends I think it’s the best thing that could have happened and I mean to have the White House bathed in rainbow colours was brilliant. Barak Obama turned round and said this was a momentous time for America and was proud to be an American. It really moved me, I know I’m a bit of a lovvie when it comes to all that but I think it’s just a brilliant thing to have happened in America.”
What about the younger generation, a whole era has changed!
CS: “I think my generation has probably grown up with the slight changes, I remember when I was younger it was still kind of, probably not in this country but not socially acceptable but at the same time not a harsh environment as the older gay community had probably experienced. I have seen the changes since from about 2000 when it became a bit more acceptable and partnerships came into being and now is just gay marriage so I think we haven’t had anything to compare it to, we’ve just seen the progression and I think it should have come a lot sooner rather than having to wait until my generation. I think it’s not just LGBT, it’s sexual and gender equality that’s still ongoing, all those issues are taking time to be resolved and I think if we can resolve the LGBT issues of today then we can sort out all the other issues as well and be the vanguard of resolution.”
Ian D. Hall