Review: Cruising, Clubbing, Fucking, Unity Theatre

Choreographer Joseph Mercier always makes an impression when he shows up at Homotopia. Last year’s show, Giselle (or I’m Too Horny to be a Prince) saw the Canadian take to the Unity stage without a stitch on in a work described as "an intimate autobiographical collage told through images, kink, ballet and exhaustion". His follow up, which received its world premiere at the venue this week, has a ridiculously provocative name and explores the history of how gay men used to hook up in those ancient times before you could stick pictures of your willy up on Grindr and fill your boots. Essentially, not one for your granny. With all the titiliation of Father Ted’s Passion of St Tibulus (“do you see the lad then, father?”), we ventured inside. Was it going to be a load of attention-seeking twaddle, or would Mercier be more artful than the garish title would suggest? Fortunately, the 55 minute show was in turns intriguing, fun, touching and sexy, and entirely fitting as a flagship Homotopia commission. A dance-theatre piece for three performers (Mercier, Dwayne Simms and Sebastian Langueneur), the dancers skirted, flirted, and kissed, from disco, to men's room, to bedroom. The storytelling was more compelling than the actual movement for the most part. With plenty of repetitive, symbolic themes the work was easy to follow and certainly somewhat romantic rather than challenging. Apart from just one thing… For all the full frontal nudity, perhaps all the more shocking as the dancers never completely undressed but instead exposed themselves in a very sexual way (that was debatably more a matter of exhibitionism rather than necessity), CCF was a tender combination of contemporary dance and physical theatre that paid tribute to the vulnerability of those brave enough to conduct those tentative mating rituals of the San Francisco gay scene in the 70s. The meat and two veg may have literally been in your face (“there was… a lot… of penises” a gobsmacked, camp voice could be heard saying on the way out), but the sentiment behind CCF was, surprisingly, something altogether more sincere than that.