Dressed as a sailor, (Jean Genet’s Querelle?) or a seaman ( get it? ) Darby is already on stage as we enter the intimate old Anatomy Lecture Theatre at Summerhall. He is perched on a tiny stool atop a circular rug, beside a ship’s wheel wound up in rope. Lying on the ground is letter in a bottle. Sea shanties are playing in the background. But we soon learn that Darby is not a camp sexual adventurer but a thoughtful gay man with strong values and that he is marooned on an emotional island of his own making.
His tale of woe began two years ago when he recklessly decided to become a sperm donor. But as a single cis gay man of thirty, did he really know what he was doing or why he was doing it?
More serious in tone than expected, the corny jizz jokes soon give way to existential angst, and we are encouraged to think about the ramifications of bringing more children into the world. We are bombasted by statistics on overpopulation, disappearing wild life, and climate change, and asked to imagine what kind of future awaits a baby today. Is this truly a virtuous act, his enabling the births of even more children?
Darby’s original songs are like traditional ditties, and show tunes, delivered effortlessly at a furious pace, often in cleverly rhyming couplets, and we are encouraged to join in the choruses. But ending one number with the audience making sounds like apes felt mean and out of character and I wish that the eighties electro pop playing in the donation centre had been woven into the score. A little Frankie Goes to Hollywood
By the end of the show Darby has settled on the theme of “Hope” as his guiding principle. We learn that the first child with his DNA has been born, a little girl. He winds up the performance, by reading from the touching letter in a bottle, which he has been asked to write to her.
