Scandalous Boy

Antinous, the Roman emperor Hadrian’s young lover, inspired a religion and dozens of exquisitely beautiful statues of his perfectly proportioned naked form. And it’s these statues that give Scandalous Boy its aesthetic – the colours of the set and lighting are the rich and muted cream of marble (as always with The Street shows, the production values are excellent and it looks stunning). Most strikingly, though, Antinous himself is presented as a statue coming to life to tell his story. Like the statue, at the outset he is naked, and remains either completely or close to naked throughout. Playing the lead, Ethan Gibson is a calibrated mix of vulnerability and chutzpah – often addressing the audience directly, he can’t even hide behind the fourth wall. One important part of the equation is Gibson's own classically beautiful body, and he is not only completely uninhibited about every bit of himself being on display, but is strong enough to develop a character that evolves from naïve to cunning, finally becoming as manipulative as he needs to be to survive on the knife-edge of being the consort of a Roman Emperor.

The play explores a different model of social mores than a modern audience will be used to. We are shown a young Antinous being gleefully groomed for sale into prostitution by his own mother, his early “work”, and his employment by the Emperor Hadrian. Antinous himself explains some of the finer elements of Roman morality that might otherwise have confused the audience.

Interestingly, Hadrian (Nicholas Eadie) seems to be the naïve character. As the top of the status pile, he at liberty to indulge a genuine love affair, while every other character by necessity practices degrees of sexual subterfuge and forms uneasy alliances for wealth and status. Hadrian’s infatuation with the young Antinous makes him vulnerable to manipulation, which the younger man exploits, much to the horror of Lucius (an advisor and ex-lover of Hadrian, played by the ubiquitous Raoul Craemer) and bemusement of Hadrian’s wife Sabina (a slinky Emma Strand). The play teases out this tangle of sexual politics in a raw and honest way, not shirking from almost brutal sex scenes.

If anything is missing from the mix, it’s probably that violence, other than sexual, was only ever implied, and then only obliquely. Perhaps this was a deliberate choice by Atfield, but since the threat of violence would have been so central to the strategic manipulations of the characters, it seemed an odd omission, particularly when the script is so brave in its depiction of sexual encounters.

Obviously, this is not a show for children, or anyone who is likely to be offended by strong nudity and sex. Scandalous Boy is a confident, gutsy addition to the genre of Queer Theatre and this is a superb, visually stunning production.

Cathy Bannister

Images: (l-r) Ethan Gibson, Raoul Craemer and Nicholas Eadie, & (l-r) Ethan Gibson, Nicholas Eadie, Emma Strand and James Hughes. Photographer: Lorna Sim.