THRIVE: Queer Voices, Out Loud

THRIVE: Queer Voices, Out Loud is a vivid exploration of true stories from LGBTQIA+ community across rural Victoria, conceived and directed by Cheyney Caddy, co-founder and artistic director of Black Apple, a Castlemaine based theatre company.

A thoughtful and considered theatrical interpretation of interviews conducted by Caddy, who has meticulously carved out a historical and contemporary analysis of six colourful personalities across a generation, reflects on change within an evolving awareness of the LGBTQIA+ community in a contemporary setting.

The Seventies gave “radical gay liberation” a platform and it was defiantly a catalyst for what we now know as Gay Pride - Loud and Proud. Caddy has fleshed out authentic characterisations from the 60’s to the present day, and has cast five actors to illustrate their lives, including one as herself.

The process of creating theatre from verbatim interviews is a challenging process, and Caddy has shaped a dramatic theatrical experience for her audience. Each actor represents one of the interviewees, each story is different, and all have connections with the LGBTQIA+ community. There is a quaint feel of seventies nostalgia that resonates in the show – now in a new century, clarity and understanding has bloomed, a time to embrace the change and live proud and loud.

Issy Weiskopf is forthright in her portrayal of Kaye Powell, who came to terms with her sexuality when studying at Melbourne Teachers College in the seventies, when gay clubs and gay nights were an acceptable part of campus life. When out in the field she was reticent to come out as a gay teacher in her conservative workplace environment, finding her niche in an inner Melbourne alternative school and gradually felt more at ease with herself as a gay woman.

Connor Dariol offers an expressive disposition as Max Primmer, who is of an older generation; born in the forties he hooked up with his gay partner  in the early sixties and lead a fulfilling life, moving around and setting up shop around Victoria. Known as “the boys”, they were accepted at the bingo, adored by their neighbours and / or maybe it was a case of turning a blind eye by a community who were probably homophobic.

The set design mimics a quaint old rustic country home in rural Victoria; it is a stable fixture for the multi-generation and multi-person team to interact and weave within and around each other as they deliver their characterisations. The ritual of socialising around the kitchen table with a “cuppa tea” offers a friendly and nurturing ambience – a time and place to air your differences and have a gasbag. The stories do get repetitive and could do with cutting back on dialogue and movement as they slow down the dramatizations.

Yet, overall Black Apple have not only captured a bygone and new era, they offer thought-provoking theatre that resides in the unique voices of oral history in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Flora Georgiou