'Repulsive and Provocative': An Interview with Blue Room Theatre's "Unveiling: Gay Sex for Endtimes"

In the coming weeks, The Blue Room Theatre will showcase a fantastical second season of Unveiling: Gay Sex for Endtimes. We interviewed all-around theatre extraordinaire Joe Lui to find out the latest prophetic wisdom.

Isolated Nation: Sum up Unveiling: Gay Sex for End Times in three words. Go.

Joe Lui: Hilarious. Grotesque. Hopeful.

IN: How many times was the Book of Revelation read in the making of this show?

JL: I must have read it 5 or 6 times in the process. Andy would have done the same. As a group, we read it at least 2 times together.

How did this incredible brainchild come about?

JL: I got talking with Andy last Fringe - we wanted to make a show that dealt with our combined interest in the sublime and the spiritual. We wanted to talk about our sense of ourselves as "othered" (in our individual ways), as well as the other ways of othering in our culture. We wanted to talk about what utopia looked like to us, and what we were hoping for in the world.

For you, as a theatre-maker, what has been a dead giveaway that we are living in the End Times?

JL: People have been proclaiming the end times (Christianity-ly and biblically) since mere years after Jesus' death. TBH, every moment we live is statistically a moment closer toward real End Times, so I guess we're always the closest we've ever been to the end of the world.

Have there been any challenges in bringing this show into the world we live in?

JL: Honestly, this has been one of the most delightful processes I've ever been a part of. I could name challenges if pushed, but everyone from the performers, to the creative team, to the organisation presenting us (The Blue Room Theatre) have been extraordinary.

Surrounded by a hypersexual and political culture do you think it's possible to keep politics out of the bedroom?

JL: I recently read this by Amira Srinivasan who wrote in the London Review of Books:

"The question, then, is how to dwell in the ambivalent place where we acknowledge that no one is obligated to desire anyone else, that no one has a right to be desired, but also that who is desired and who isn’t is a political question, a question usually answered by more general patterns of domination and exclusion."

I thought this was especially pertinent in our show - which counts sex (queer and otherwise) and gender (queer and otherwise) amongst its major themes and interests. That ambivalence - that tension between our natural desires and the politics that underpins them is a large part of our exploration. Body, skin, genitalia - these are all deeply private spaces that have been made political by the human histories of oppression, and navigating those politics while maintaining a space sacred for love, joy and lust is something we all do, all the time. This show in many ways takes that navigation and throws it on stage in a bloody, cum soaked mess.

And in this current culture, what is important about this piece? 

JL: Most important for me, I think - is its sense of hope. What I love about Unveiling is not simply that it points out what's wrong in our patriarchal, homophobic and racist cultures. Within it we posit utopia; we posit a heavenly vision that we acknowledge we will never achieve, but also reaffirm how important it is to continually seek and strive for it.

The title is catchy as heck, does the spectacle of the show impact in how it's received by the audience?

JL: I hope so. My friend and collaborator told me a year ago that, "the more experimental something is - the more entertaining it has to be". Which is something anyone close to me hates hearing because I've not stopped repeating it since. I certainly hope (and expect) that audiences will have a really great time amidst the chaos, and even if they're not following (hot tip - none of it exists to be "followed" as a traditional story), they're understanding and reflecting on moments, and laughing while they happen.

How do you go about bearing all on stage, and what kind of role do you think nudity plays in live performance?

JL: I think nudity is a tool. It's a tool that should be used with great care (in terms both of its presence as a creative choice and the mental health load and vulnerability it can have on performers). But when it works it is beautiful. It cuts through all the pretence and bullshit, and all of a sudden you're looking at something on stage that cannot be faked. It is what it is. You can't act yourself into a new body. Its reality is all its own, like an animal on stage. It's a wonderful thing. Our show is almost completely nude - you are always so aware that you exist inside of a performance. Meanwhile, it is remarkable how easily people adapt to how naked everyone is. Almost like it's a natural state of being.

Tissue, earlier this year at the Subiaco Theatre Festival, revisited an important conversation about relationships, challenging many traditional views around porn. Is Unveiling in a similar vein; to challenge audience perspectives?

JL: Maybe it's a bit less of a "challenge" - and more a rallying cry for the sympathetic. "Yes, here we are, we're here for you. We're all weird. So it's okay that you are". Also, it's a call to action - "Let's do better. Because it can be so much better.

IN: Finally, if you were to spoon-feed the audience anything, what would you hope they'd take away from Unveiling?

JL: A recent audience member said, “it was by turns disturbing, amusing, charming, repulsive and provocative. I also suspect you’re a bunch of romantics.” If everyone walked away with that churn of emotions I’d be very happy indeed.

"Unveiling: Gay Sex for Endtimes" is at The Blue Room Theatre August 14-25.