The Year of Magical Wanking
With a title like that, one could be forgiven for assuming this to be one of the queer theatre season’s more base productions. You know the sort: a few pithy one liners and a plethora of on-stage nudity to placate undemanding audiences.
Instead, Irish performer Neil Watkins’ self-penned one-hour monologue, told entirely in lyrical rhyming verse, is a devastating look at issues of addiction and self-worth among gay men.
Watkins’ vices – casual sex, recreational drugs and internet porn – aren’t necessarily destructive forces in and of themselves. It’s the way that he uses them to mask his underlying problems – with his childhood abuse, with his HIV status and with his Catholic guilt – that proves so damaging.
In Watkins’ hands, even dabbling in drag – a freeing exercise for so many gay men who try it – proves disastrous, as his drag alter ego effectively turns on him in one particularly impressive scene.
This is tough going, particularly for any audience member who’s questioned their own relationship to Watkins’ weapons of choice. While moments of black humour glimmer throughout, true redemption doesn’t come until the work’s final moments. When it does, though, it’s been more than worth the journey.
info: The Year of Magical Wanking, Sydney Theatre, until February 18. www.sydneytheatre.org.au and Adelaide Fringe Festival, February 22-March 18.
