Elegies for Angels, Punks AND Raging Queens  ☆☆☆☆
Union Theatre, London

In a year in which The Inheritance claimed every kind of London theatre accolade it’s a tough job to put on an AIDS crisis era play without inviting comparison. Happily, when contrasted rather than compared, Elegies sets its own standard. It is different in a good way.

The Inheritance has an epic feel from following the lives of characters for generational lengths. Elegies differs in choosing to tell short individual stories one after the other in monologue, poetry and song. The stories are presented in the style of the AIDS memorial quilt. The quilt was an enduring symbol of the hopeless stage of the epidemic and tearfully viewed by a scarred generation when it toured the world in the early 90s. Each panel was a woven pictorial tribute created by friends, lovers or families. Every character in Elegies has their own small but fascinating panel.

Instead of the suffocating bubble of mainly white, Hells Kitty Fire Island queens that The Inheritance fails to burst, Elegies reveals the dimensions of the AIDS epidemic. There are mothers in the Barrio, families of hemophiliacs, sex workers, addicts, executives, guys on the DL, husbands, wives, different nationalities, relationships, sexual encounters and accidents. There are the people who have the virus and the families, communities and circumstances in which they live. The pre meds AIDS crisis was not just emotionally huge it was a statistically overwhelming global firestorm. Elegies represents the millions who suffered and were lost whilst retaining human scale and honoring the disproportionate impact on the gay community.

The challenge of Elegies is that it is impossible to represent a patchwork without it occasionally feeling patchy. Not every scene, story, song or actor is a gem. There are attempts to inject contemporary references to Grindr and Netflix that jar because the pre medication AIDS crisis had such a particular historical meaning. But there are enough diamonds in this production to make it moving and occasionally gripping. There is true poetry in the words and heartfelt rhythm in the action. The cast makes a virtue out of team work though they could have enjoyed more applause with more pauses to allow audience response.

To overcome the episodic quality of the diverse stories Elegies travels the different stages of grief. There is a journey from denial to anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Elegies is more subtle in handling grief than The Inheritance. Where The Inheritance over relied on wordless bawls and the innate sadness of AIDS Elegies is disciplined in repeatedly returning to the power of carefully crafted words.

At the end, when acceptance of grief seems inevitable but not satisfying the buoyant cast bring it home with a celebration of living through song. It did not try to make the audience feel cheerful but it did make them want to cheer and clap. If an alternative history of the AIDS epidemic to the powerful but narrow one presented in The Inheritance is sought, this play is waiting to be rediscovered.  

Book and Lyrics by Bill Russell
Music by Janet Hood
Directed by Bryan Hodgson

http://www.uniontheatre.biz/elegies.html
Wednesday 15th May – Saturday 8th June 2019
This production is being produced in support of the MAD Trust.

Review by Andrew Hebden

Queerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.