Our Blood Runs In The Street | Shane Anthony and Ensemble

This kind of theatre is my area of academic expertise. In specific, how theatre that delves into narratives of Queer trauma can be constructed in ways that don’t retraumatise the Queer audiences who will no doubt come to see them. As such, I had reservations going into Our Blood Runs in the Streets (OBRITS). The work is described as a searing and unapologetic look into the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Gay and Transgender hate crimes between 1970 and 2010. When I see a show marketed as being “unapologetic” it makes me quite nervous. It sends the little red flag of “this show is actually for the cisgender heterosexual audience” shooting into the air. Now, I will not go on for a hundred years about my research because my research is not the subject of this review. My experience of this work was deeply informed by my research, however. And I would be doing you all a disservice if I did not speak fully of my experience. Returning to the point, I will say that OBRITS does quite a good job of following two of the dramaturgical guidelines I lay out in my work. These guidelines are:

Remember that Queer audiences know what it is to be violated.

They do not need to witness that violence unfold in its fullness.

and

Remember that Queer people are allowed to experience pain onstage.

However, that pain must share space with healing.

In relationship to the first of these it could be said definitively that there is a version of this work wherein the audience witnesses at least one of the hate crimes included in the Parliamentary Inquiry unfold in graphic detail. Thankfully, this is not the version we have been provided with. At moments when my plus one (who is also Queer) and I believed we were about to watch a hate crime we were surprised to see these attacks abstracted via movement/dance sequences. All of which were quite stunning by the way.

Images: Jasmin Simmons

The second relates to Shane Anthony and the Ensemble’s decision to focus on the glimmers of justice the survivors or families of victims were able to see rather than homing in exclusively on the atrocities these people endured. Which is to say, the show is not all doom and gloom. The result of these choices is a work that carries weight but does not actively leave its Queer viewers feeling heavy. The ending in particular provides a sense of hope and finality (as opposed to false ideas of closure) that makes it easier to condense the weight of the work into something easily carried in one’s pocket.

 Something that was less than easy to digest was the limited melanin onstage as well as the script’s overwhelming focus on cisgender gay men. As anyone who has even a vague understanding of Queerness knows this community is a deeply complex one and it would be a lot more satisfying to see that nuance reflected onstage. This is not necessarily to the work’s detriment, but it is of note. The problem is not that the story is inaccurate but that this kind of story – the white cisgender gay story – is largely the only one being told (a line paraphrased from my plus one’s research into erasure in Queer spaces).

I take very little issue with the way the work is constructed and by who it was made and performed. There are a couple of ideas the work communicates that I do take issue with, however. Firstly, some discussion is had about the similarities between the hellish experiences of Queer people during the time the inquiry investigates and long-term plights of First Nations people across the history of this colony. Obviously, this is verbatim theatre and so a lot of what is being said has been lifted directly from the words of others but that doesn’t detract from the wonkiness of the logic presented. One of the privileges Queer people (especially cisgender white Queer people) experience is the ability to “pass” or to hide their Queerness from the outside world. This is simply not the case for First Nations people and so that immediately presents a colossal difference in experience. If this comparison had been framed as being about the behaviour of the police force rather than the experiences of communities then it would have landed a lot better in my opinion.

Secondly, there was a particular moment where it is posited that trans women and non-binary people are going through the same vitriol and violence today as gay men were from the 70s through 90s. And I will posit in return that this vitriol and violence has only just started being recorded and reported sufficiently, including the most basic curtesy of acknowledging trans women as being women and non-binary people as even existing. Trans women and non-binary started incurring these same violences at the same time it’s just that the larger public is only just starting to notice and/or give a shit.

This second gripe of mine is course correctly quite well by what was decidedly my favourite section of the entire work (which has only slightly to do with my personal biases as a transfeminine person), the extended monologue given by Cassie Hamilton about the lack of records and the lack of acknowledgement of the violence trans woman and non-binary people face at the hands of this colony. Extremely well-written and devastatingly performed it took quite a lot of effort on my part to keep from crying and immediately ruining my eyeliner as a result.

From a technical perspective this production is very well made. Veronique Bennett’s set design is exquisitely rendered with small details peeking out you the more you look at it, simultaneously tightening the world of the play and giving it scope. Richard Whitehouse, with associate Nathaniel Knight’s, lighting enhances this effect. Each lighting state creates and immediate understanding of the environment each scene takes place in for the viewer, whether it be a dive bar on Oxford Street or the genpop of a prison. I will say that quite a few elements across the entire work (including the performances) seemed a little rough around the edges in a way that denotes a lack of rehearsal. This is a shame because the potential for precision is there. A couple of lighting states early in the performance seemed incongruent with what was happening onstage, however. And I could see actors trying to remember lines while also feeling them when they should only be doing the latter once a scripted work is in front of an audience.

All in all, OBRITS does the job it set out to do. It provides audiences with a hidden history of this place and does so in a way that is emotionally evocative rather than destructive – with a slightly more nuanced range of representations and more rehearsal I think this work could have left me a sobbing mess rather than a lightly weeping one.

Do not show Queer people what it is to bleed.

Show them what it is to heal.