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The Gay Detective. By Gerard Stembridge. Projects Arts Centre. Tricycle Theatre, London. 6 November 1996.
Mojo. By Jez Butterworth. Royal Court Downstairs (Duke of York's), London. 11 October 1996.
"Stop the plague of pink plays," pleads the head-line of an article by Milton Shulman (Evening Standard, 30 September 1994), one of several critics to comment in 1994 about the proliferation of gay plays in the London theatre. Notwithstanding Shulman's anxiety that "gaydom cannot be an infinite source of interesting dramatic situations," the epidemic shows little sign of abating. The most recent "gay play" is an Irish import which testifies to the theatre's claim to be an exemplary site for exploring issues of gender and sexual identity. The production of Gerard Stembridge's The Gay Detective has coincided with a revival of Jez Butterworth's Mojo, which reflects another aspect of the recent fascination with "gaydom" by using homoeroticism merely as a modish dramatic ploy.
Stembridge, author of eleven plays and writer and director of the acclaimed film Guiltrip (1995), is also the director of The Gay Detective, which opened at the Project Arts Centre in Dublin on 8 February 1996. The production's transfer to the Tricycle, an Off-West End theatre in Kilburn, reflects the Tricycle's particular commitment to Irish theatre: Field Day, Rough Magic, and the Druid Theatre Company are among the Irish troupes which have appeared there.
Stembridge's play is set in Dublin in 1993, just before homosexuality was de-criminalized in Eire. "Queers are either sad or bad. They fuck up their own lives first, and then everyone else's lives after that. Now maybe you're the exception that proves the rule," says Superintendent Bear (Mark Lambert) to the play's (anti-)hero, Pat (Peter Hanly) (Gerard Stembridge, The Gay Detective [London: Nick Hern Books, 1996]). Stembridge's concern is not so much to expose the homophobia of the Garda or Irish society, but to examine how the homosexual negotiates with this hostile world. The play also demonstrates a rare willingness to acknowledge problematic aspects of gay culture, such as misogyny and the egotism of gay men. The Gay Detective explores such issues through an imaginative use of the genre of the detective thriller, into which a love story is deftly interwoven. Pat, a young sergeant, is offered the carrot...