Review: 'Love on Trial', Bilimankhwe Arts, Ovalhouse, Sat 23rd February

‘I have never felt sexually attracted to any woman in my life…If a law is designed to suppress freedom, then it is a stupid law that must be scrapped’, speaks Charles, one of many characters embodied by Bailey Patrick in Bilimankhwe Arts’ simple yet thought provoking one-man show, a retelling of Stanley Kenani’s highly acclaimed short story based on the true account of a homosexual partnership between two young Malawian men.

Bare, sparse and remote, two washing lines cross a near-empty stage, from which performer Bailey Patrick suspends numerous newspaper dolls throughout. The image is enchantingly child-like yet simultaneously looming and sinister, an eerie evocation of the dire fate which continues to hover over practicing homosexuals in certain nations. The mounting accumulation of paper figures provides a striking visual depiction of the extent to which a private relationship becomes a public issue when a society has deemed that partnership ‘unnatural’.

Patrick immediately welcomes the audience to his home, angling his behind towards an audience member and quipping ‘best view in the house’, he sabotages any suspicious lingering of a fourth wall, fostering a good-natured, jesting tone. The atmosphere is transformed from cosy intimacy to uncomfortable intrusion, the initially comfortable immediacy now becomes more uncertain territory. On one occasion Patrick poses a seemingly rhetorical query “what does lewd mean?”, yet refuses to continue until at least one of his unwitting audience members has provided a response. Less aggressive, more provoking, this is a thoughtful device by Lane, recreating a very real scenario in which articulating your convictions becomes an uncertain and public event.

Director Lane fuses Kenani’s tale with references to the media furore which erupted from George Michael’s infamous encounter in an LA public toilet, with poignant, provocative results. Despite these interludes this is far from an all-singing all-dancing extravaganza, and Lane skillfully diverts both cliché and political lecture in this in turn hilarious and haunting piece.  What we have is one actor, standing on a tiny stage with two chairs and a suitcase. The story-telling element is enchanting, and a faithful preservation of Kenani’s narrative tone, yet more poignant is that ensuing sense of cruel isolation, the loneliness of one despised and ostracized by their community.

The sole criticism is that at 45 minutes, I was left wanting more, though perhaps this is director Lane’s point, providing a brief snapshot into a journey that is far off completion, a pause for thought on the continuing instances of forcefully curtailed dialogues; a point brought home particularly uncomfortably every time Patrick effortlessly destroys one of those fragile figures hanging above his head. 4/5