Sauna Boy * * * *

Edinburgh Festival Fringe

After a year-long tour of the US and Australia, Dan Ireland-Reeves, writer and performer of Sauna Boy, brings his semi-autobiographical production to the Edinburgh Fringe.

It has erroneously been suggested that the title and subject matter of this show is just a ruse to get gay bums on seats, but the performance is more disturbing than salacious, and anyone expecting more than a fleeting flash of ass will be disappointed.

This is very much a nitty-gritty, behind-the-scenes view of a gay business as seen by an insider. It’s superficially about dedication and hard work in a closed, secret environment, but there’s a subtext.

Soon after being hired as a cleaner, “Danny Boy” who has never been to a gay sauna before, is promoted to manager of “The West End Sauna.”

Dan certainly does not paint a pretty picture of the bathhouse that he manages, and he doesn’t hold back on descriptions of sucking, fucking, rimming, fisting, cum, shit, and piss.

At least his boss, Alan, makes sure that the establishment is cleaned thoroughly and relentlessly, which Dan finds borderline OCD, but which most of us would find comforting.

Nor does Dan describe his coworkers and clients favourably, except for the young attractive ones. Unfortunately, there are too many bitchy queens inhabiting this sauna, and even although Dan impersonates them well, and the audience laughs at their antics, I quickly grew tired of their whines. For me the laughs in this show rely mostly on outdated camp stereotypes and innuendo, (“Carry On Steaming?”) and the humour is not presented with enough irony to feel original, but as I said, the audience loved it.

The most extreme of these queens is Alan or “Mother” A moody narcissist who lazily controls the sauna in a Prosecco induced daze and makes Dan’s life a misery. His drunken behaviour at the sauna’s 21st anniversary party, after he uncomfortably staggers into the audience, singing “My Way,” finally reveals his true, bitter self.

What about Dan’s sex life? Only once does Dan seem to have sex, and it’s with a client, Ash, the most handsome of the younger regulars. Until this point he has been an innocent voyeur, indifferent to the orgies going on around him.

And what are we left to imagine about the nature of the three way relationship between Dan, his best friend Chase and “Mother”? Did Dan sleep with “Mother” to gain his promotion? Did Dan sleep with Chase? And did Chase sleep with “Mother” to keep his job? We will never know.

A few days short of a year after starting work at the sauna , things come to a head between Dan and “Mother”. As Chase leaves to join the army and Dan resigns, we hear the point of view of his favourite old regular, Anthony. The bath house is less about anonymous sex, than about being a safe space for the gay and bisexual community to gather together freely. This is news to Dan who has only experienced the sauna as an employee.

But there then follows is a contradiction which is difficult to fathom. In spite of the horrors he has described, the chaos and challenges he has faced, Dan ends by describing this period as exhilarating and as the best year of his life. He made a new friend in Chase, became a sauna manager, redesigned its website, got the place a liquor licence and filled all 80 lockers and more, making it the most popular sauna on the south coast.

But on the other hand, despite the added safety risks from alcohol, he forgot to get himself or any other members of staff, training in first aid and a client almost died because of it.

Is he an unreliable narrator? He talks about how he isn’t sure of who he is anymore. Or is he actually in need of therapy after his year working at the sauna?

Possibly both.

Dan Ireland-Reeves is a likeable, enthusiastic performer and his enjoyable show is definitely worth seeing, but there is something unsettling about this production. Maybe that is the point. Maybe Dan is a genius.

P.S. Queerguru caught up with Dan when he took Sauna Boy on Tour and  was on the eve of playing Provincetown check out our interview  HERE