Venue: Blood Moon Theatre (Potts Point NSW), Feb 21 – Mar 4, 2017
Playwright: Ben Noble
Director: Casey Gould
Cast: Ben Noble
Image by Deryk McAlpin
Theatre review
Corey is a man whose homophobia is bigger than the love for his own son. Ben Noble’s Member is an investigation into how young men learn to hate, and more specifically, how a culture of gay bashing and gay murders, is fostered in places like Sydney. Corey grew up in the Northern Beaches, a regular white boy with no cares in the world, wanting for nothing except for the acceptance of his peers. We see him fall in with a gang of young men who hunt down gay individuals in isolated areas, and witness how he is pressured into his first killing.
The writing is powerful, dark and urgent. Although conceived as a monologue, it comprises voices of the many personalities in Corey’s world, that reflect the social construct of his very being. It helps us understand how violence is bred, not so that we forgive perpetrators, but to find a way to dismantle the process by which our innocent children are groomed into hateful forces of evil. The play marvellously exposes us to the depths of Corey’s vicious immorality, while insisting on his unassailable humanity, in order that we may recognise the reality of his wrongdoing and not have it glossed over as some kind of psychopathic exception. As a community, we are made to see in Member, where our complicity lies in the formation of behaviour and belief systems of people like Corey. We may not be responsible for these murderers, but we have to discover a change that will ensure that this continuing misanthropy is eradicated.
It is a finely calibrated show by director Casey Gould, impressively dynamic and wildly captivating with its expansive landscape of sentimentality. Very effective design work (sound by Coleman Grehan and lights by Lisa Mibus) relies on a high-polish precision that helps facilitate our every emotional response, and the delicate transitions between. Gould’s very complicated structure of speedy character transformations is a remarkably tall order, and although Ben Noble’s execution as actor is not completely flawless, he is often astonishing on stage. Noble’s extraordinary concentration and impeccable ability to thoroughly communicate meanings and emotions, elevates this simplest of theatrical forms, the one man show, to an art that is hard to beat for its empathetic impact.
There remain parts of the world where LGBT people are marginalised, and killed, as a matter of course. We may not feel the need to concern ourselves with those lives, but we must acknowledge that that same psychology and sociology of hatred exists right here, and when left unchecked, can manifest just as brutally. The flavour of the month in our violent West, may no longer be the lonely gay man who seeks solace in dangerous beats, but that attitude of senseless persecution of minorities is a thriving part of our lives, and must never be left disregarded.
Suzy Goes See 