When exposing the church’s gay taboos and lampooning the establishment, you really have to think your attack out with care, especially if it’s in the form of a farce. Such diligence is needed due to Joe Orton’s conquest of this genre back in the sixties. Stigmata’s creator, Billy Cowan, has taken the task by its broad shoulders.
His feminist-lesbian charade bubbles for an hour and 20 minutes, during which time Jo (Frog Stone) and Dominic’s (Samuel Metcalf) lively double act have the audience cracked with laughter. The pair concoct a wacky scheme involving nails in hands, the world’s media and a rap by God dictating Stigmata Jo’s obsession with female equality. Camp Dominic just hopes all the attention will land him a spot on a reality TV show.
Like Orton but perhaps to a lesser extent, Cowan has instilled a huge dose of controversy in his work. His decision is to cover all priests with the same label reading ‘They all crave sex with young boys’. This may be deemed an act of antagonism. Yet as with Orton’s plays, you have to suspend any sense of offence and absorb the sentiments rationally because taboos need animating before they are tackled.
Production information can change over the run of the show.
Content is copyright © 2012 The Stage Media Company Limited unless otherwise stated.
All RSS feeds are published for personal, non-commercial use. (What’s RSS?)
