Venue: El Rocco Room (Potts Point NSW), Jul 10 – 25, 2019
Playwright: Barry Lowe
Director: Porter James
Cast: Isaac Broadbent, Samuel Welsh
Images by Joseph Issa
Theatre review
Clay has come to Sydney looking for his brother, just when Adam announces his retirement from footy stardom. It is not a convenient time, made even more difficult by Clay’s over-the-top homophobia, as he discovers Adam to be in the process of coming out as gay. Relative Merits by Barry Lowe describes some of the hardest experiences for LGBTQI people, when we have to deal with conflict between family members who are almost always ignorant of our challenges. The story takes place 30 years ago, and even though much of our social contexts have changed, what happens at home can still feel much the same.
Young Clay has to go through an extensive learning process over a short period, to undo a lifetime of programming. He is presented with a situation that goes against bigoted values he had inherited, but the love for his brother compels a process of rehabilitation, like many families have had to experience. Actor Isaac Broadbent convincingly portrays that transformation in Clay, with co-star Samuel Welsh adept at expressing Adam’s various states of torment. Performances often feel exaggerated, as a result of some very unsubtle writing, but director Porter James ensures that the narrative is conveyed with clarity, for an hour of nostalgic theatre that is not without its charms.
Queer babies are born everyday to straight parents. This is our history, and will continue to be our reality, as long as that binary of straight and queer persists. It is however possible to imagine a future in which people are not defined thus, that sexuality rejects those categories, so that we will no longer be able to be segregated by useless notions of difference. If we do preserve those differences, we must better appreciate the equality that exists within those differences, that we may be diverse and unpredictable, but human lives should not be ranked in arbitrary hierarchies that prioritise some over others. It may not always be our natural impulse to love all, but if there is anything that is worth indoctrination, it is that message of love thy neighbour that we must insist to come above all else.
Suzy Goes See 