There’s a shocking moment in The Gay Heritage Project when one actor detours to Nazi extermination camps where homosexuals are beaten, starved and forced to work in clay pits.
Actor Paul Dunn describes how a homosexual priest is brought into a camp, tied to a bench and beaten across his face, body and genitals. Tears glisten in Dunn’s eyes and the silence in the tightly packed audience is deafening.
A chill runs down my spine and the nauseating account jolts me into complete stillness. Such is the power of The Gay Heritage Project now playing at The Club in Citadel Theatre until Feb. 27.
Short of two hours, the play is the product of three young gay actors – Dunn, Damien Atkins and Andrew Kushnir – men born after the atrocities of the Second World War.
But as the play slowly reveals, the queer world continues to be marked by violence, ostracism, neglect and the refusal to recognize its existence.
The three queer actor-creators set out to explore the heritage of gay sexuality wondering if there was a connection that links past and present.
In doing so have they give us a historical tutorial in LGBT culture that is thought provoking, imaginative, poignant, hilarious and deeply touching.
From the start, Damien, Dunn and Kushnir use their personal experiences as the play’s bedrock to create a tightly cohesive series of scenes. Not every scene is gloomy. Some are very upbeat.
The play opens with the bubbly, energetic Atkins in his tweenish years impersonating Olympic figure skater Brian Orser’s triple axles. As a young kid, he’s yearning to find something in common with the ice star and by doing so reveals a flicker of his sexual orientation.
The curly haired Kushnir, meanwhile sits at a computer Googling Ukraine’s queer heritage and comes up with zero leads – a weird affirmation of his mother’s declaration that there are no gay Ukrainians.
In various other scenes, the affable Kushnir adopts a variety of personas from Da Vinci to creating a back-alley confrontation between the respectable Gay Identity and the more lascivious Gay Desire.
The three actors share equal time, however, Atkins comes across as the star. A jaw-dropping mimic, a skill he was encouraged to polish as a St. Albert Children’s Theatre alumnus, Atkins delivers the funniest accented scenes.
One that provoked a cackle of laughter was his take on Polari, traditional British queer-speak used to discuss private matters aloud without being understood.
The play touches on numerous topics – revisionist history, famous queer people, bath-house raids, police brutality, media ignorance, social activism, murder, AIDS and gay-straight alliance clubs. Some are handled with humour, others with criticism.
Director Ashlie Corcoran keeps the pace moving at a fast clip, but at times the show feels as if there is too much to absorb.
All in all, it’s an incredible evening with three resourceful and brilliant actors.
Review
Gay Heritage Project<br />With Damien Atkins, Paul Dunn and Andrew Kushnir<br />Runs until Feb. 27<br />Citadel Theatre
