Joel welcomes us into the theatre, offering us a drink from the trestle table just inside the entrance. It’s a selection of Lipton teas and International Roast and it sets the mood immediately.
As we take
our seats, we’re in the meeting room of a church hall. Heavy-duty carpets and
vertical drapes and stacks of white, plastic chairs. If the offer of a hot
beverage wasn’t enough, Kate Davis’ set puts us – the congregation – in that
space. Called together and packed tight.
As the
audience files in and finds their seats, Peter is on all fours, cleaning the carpet
with a hand vac that’s not really up to the job. Peter’s having fun with it
though, shaking his arse and crawling around – stretching provocatively, lunging
under the chairs and the overhead projector.
Welcome to
the church that changed both of these men in vastly different ways. The church
of Scott Morrison and Hillsong and singing and speaking in tongues and one of
the lessons that rang in Joel and Peter’s ears – homosexuality is paedophilia.
Homo
Pentecostus indeed.
Creators
and performers Joel Bray and Peter Paltos have worked hand-in-hand with director
Emma Valente to create a piece that you might describe as confessional – except
that feels like a kind of judgement, layered in by the guilt of churches
everywhere. This is two performers with lived experience of the Pentecostal
Church being honest about how it factored into their lives and how it continues
its hold over them in various healthy and harmful ways.
The
audience is invited to stand and raise their hands and sing Cher’s 1998 hit Believe
because the lyrics seem vaguely spiritual and she’s a gay icon. Peter once dressed
as her for Halloween, after all.
And then we’re
treated to a kaleidoscope of music and dance and stories of coming out and
queerness and how this particular religion is a deep mark, a wound in their family histories. Joel, a First Nations performer, talks about how
Christianity and settler colonialism destroyed sacred sites of his people. Peter,
of Egyptian and Armenian background, wrestles with the comfort he still feels
with God – while reflecting on the genocide in his grandfather’s homeland.
There is
some deep pain in this show that erupts in surprising ways, though both men still
find absurd humour in the way their lives unfolded. And the combination of their
spirituality and homosexuality isn’t as in conflict as you might first think.
Joel Bray’s
choreography is as open and telling as any of the rants he has about losing his
connection to country and the divine. At moments, his movements are lithe and
alluring and then they are spiky and erratic; explosions of dance both heart-pounding and heart-breaking.
Peter Paltos’
presence is always striking, but beyond his physicality, his façade drops to reveal
moments of great aching and vulnerability. He’s in fine form and can command
our attention even with the smallest of gestures and looks. Or when he’s
ranting through a list of sins most of us are guilty of committing.
Emma Valente’s
direction is, as always, very precise. An almost clean and clear space turns into
rows of those plastic chairs that later transform into a rocky landscape and
then a bonfire to worship and for Joel and Peter to warm themselves by. It’s
sparse and then it’s difficult terrain and then, somehow, we find comfort
there.
It’s impossible not to think of the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza and ethnic cleansing in Sudan when watching Homo Pentecostus, because genocide is part of the text. Because it’s part of Joel and Peter’s family stories. It’s part of the history of so-called Australia.
But the conversation this show wants us to have is not
just right for this moment, it’s a conversation we should have had long ago.
Organised religion can be used to bulldoze history, to tear up sacred sites, to destroy queer lives and to justify the most appalling acts of cruelty.
But
dismissing religion and spirituality and the divine is both too easy and
impossible. Homo Pentecostus is about our fraught relationship with what
has come before and how we use that to create a future for ourselves and
others. As well as the dangers of trying to wipe away the traumas that inform
us and build us.
There are
moments in this show that touched me, moments that shook me and moments that
sing and dance and shout so loudly, the show leaps from the stage and becomes
sublime.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Homo
Pentecostus is on
at the Malthouse until May 25th
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