FringeReview UK 2024
F**king Men
Waterloo East Theatre
Genre: Contemporary, Drama, Fringe Theatre, LGBTQ+ Theatre, Short Plays, Theatre
Venue: Waterloo East Theatre
Festival: FringeReview UK
Low Down
POSH this isn’t. Yet to sexy-and-they-know-it musical blasts four men appear behind panels that light to transparent and opaque revealing brickwork behind, a svelte-lit set designed by Cara Evans, as they don three sets of clothes each. So Joe DiPietro’s F**king Men, directed by Steven Kunis is revived at Waterloo East Theatre till May 26th.
It’s a superb ensemble piece too, throughout its 90 minutes, spellbinding in never flagging, never repeating itself, always revealing something fresh about love, lust, and the conditions gay men face and face off, and naturally, those they don’t. A must-see.
Written by Joe DiPietro, Directed by Steven Kunis, Designed by Cara Evans, Lighting Designer Alex Lewer, Sound Design Julian Starr, Movement & Intimacy Director Lee Crowley, Production Manager Carrie Croft, Casting Director Anne Vosser
Till May 26th.
Review
POSH this isn’t. Yet to sexy-and-they-know-it musical blasts four men appear behind panels that light to transparent and opaque revealing brickwork behind, a svelte-lit set designed by Cara Evans, as they don three sets of clothes each. So Joe DiPietro’s F**king Men, directed by Steven Kunis is revived at Waterloo East Theatre till May 26th.
And before the panels of course there’s an inviting circular bed.
Premiered at the Finborough in 2008, and enjoying another run at the King’s Head and Vaults before arriving at the 100-set intimate Waterloo east last year. It’s a gay whirligig of La Ronde Schnitzler would have understood, spinning ten men’s stories round to the person we began with. Both honest, and updated it’s even more prescient as we witness homophobic backlashes (encoded here as warnings) and unflinchingly lays the living siew bare.
F**king Menmight be focused on gay relationships, but like Schnitzler too, it expands to all human conditions and the audience’s shouts and laughter, as well as silences, register that minute by minute.
Rory Connolly is most affecting, as hooker John who attracts two assaults at the beginning and end, and benefits from both.
As a vulnerable, lonely midwestern man of 25 it’s ironic John encounters “I’m-not-gay-but-Marine Steve (Jason Eddy) in his job as a male hooker: who beats him up later apologises: we learn at the end they’ve formed a far deeper relationship, after John’s encounter with journalist Donald (David Michaels) in a satisfying, touching finale.
Connolly’s also the avowedly ‘bi’ student Kyle full of young privilege who attracts his tutor Marco (Joe Bishop) who’s shrugged off Steve. “I have a girlfriend” Kyle asserts. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
We follow spoilt rich student Kyle with Michael’s doubting, insecure and (as picked up by Kyle) amazed Leo, an older married man whose11-year-spouse Jack (Eddy again) is the most self-aware perhaps, the most chameleon-like in manner, avowing enteral love to two men: which is true? Jack has an answer.
Jack’s the best portrait of a realist, most at peace with his choices though. Though happy in an open relationship that doesn’t ask questions, Jack’s clear about setting up Ryan (Connolly again, another escort) in his own flat. And pays his rent.
There’s themes of internalised homophobia, sexual and emotional cruelty, shame, particularly with older men contrasting with the careless, reveals on Only Fans, almost heedless braggadocio of the young, who’ve yet to encounter socially covert homophobia. And DiPietro studs these encounters with flashbacks or comments about the state of things voiced by actors behind the glass.
Other misogynies tossed off as it were include “Girl want to talk, gay men never need to” and so on which garners particular whoops of recognition from women audience members. Another is “Straight people…pushing foreign bodies into each other.”
It’s Ryan who encounters the magnificently sent-up playwright (Bishop agan) with 300 followers… “My artistic ambition is to be cancelled… if Joan Crawford couldn’t act it, I don’t write it” DiPietro’s wicked send-up of a playwright close in manner to his own writing but far less self-aware, more pretentious, a self-parody of a DiPietro that perhaps ever existed.
It’s Bishop’s finest moment, as the writer’s star-struck by Eddy’s Oscar-nominated straight-acting star Brandon. But propositioned by Brandon he then finds himself frozen out of briefly-flirted-with projects, and resorts to truly dark actions, that brings in the only non-sexual moment, as Brandon consults TV journalist Donald.
Brandon guesses Donald’s secret and needs help. This is darker material than anything in La Ronde. Exposing hypocrisy in the film and entertainment world, residual homophobia quite apart from the far-right kind, it shows how far we’ve come and how far there is to go.
Alex Lewer’s lighting is spectral, garish, and infinitely well-angled into the small space that lights up brickwork behind the panels as an alley or broom-cupboard, as Julian Starr’s sound design pulses and fades like that moment in POSH when you think a pop video will pop out, but then sashays somewhere else. It sometimes acts as a plot-point as a spoilt student plays with a console. And shout out to Lee Crowley’s intimacy and movement, both sexy and plangent, synched with Lewer’s lighting at moments of consummation.
It’s a superb ensemble piece too, throughout its 90 minutes, spellbinding in never flagging, never repeating itself, always revealing something fresh about love, lust, and the conditions gay men face and face off, and naturally, those they don’t. A must-see.
