Sometimes, just being gay can feel like a riotous act. But
in Alexis Gregory’s new verbatim play Riot
Act, he details the lives of three queer heroes who were all, in their own
way, revolutionary.
Gregory interviewed three men – Michael-Anthony Nozzi,
Lavinia Co-op and Paul Burston – and has used their exact words (and, significantly,
their real names) to tell their stories. Nozzi was present at the Stonewall
riots of 1969 that led to the gay liberation movement. Lavinia was a radical drag
queen throughout 1980s London. Burston was an AIDs activist in London in the
80s and 90s. Through each monologue, Gregory explores political themes, queer
life, the relationships between queer men and women, and highlighting the
importance of this pivotal era in queer history.
The stories themselves are fascinating. There’s Nozzi, still
a teenager, visiting the Stonewall Inn for the first time and telling in detail
the brutal, horrifying violence that occurred that night. There’s Lavinia’s
nights in various clubs, providing politically charged entertainment when close
friends succumbed to illness. And there’s Burston barricading roads in pursuit
of justice. Gregory gives each storyteller a distinct personality, with
mannerisms and nuance that capture the presumed exactness of the three men he
interviewed.
Yet this is recounting more than creative storytelling. The
speeches are word-for-word from the interviews; that includes little bits of
conversational dialogue that certainly add personality and humour, but also suggest
a lack of specificity for the theatre. The stories aren’t interlinked in any
way, besides overarching themes, which does provide clarity of voice. But perhaps
this material would make for a more interesting film documentary with the
original men, as accomplished as Gregory’s performance surely is.
What does particularly come through is the generational gap
between those gay men who lived through this time and the gay youth of today.
The speeches suggest a complacency in young people, neglecting the history that
allows us to be so liberated in 2018. That’s what makes these stories so vital:
as entertaining and tragic as they are, these are the lives of three heroes
whose contribution to history deserves to be heard.
3/5
Watch: Riot Act runs
at the Kings Head Theatre as part of their Queer Season until 5th
August.
Photos: Dawson James