Augusto Boal, acclaimed activist and creator of the Theatre of the Oppressed, argued that theatre could be a powerful weapon for political change when wielded by the people. A new Irish play, The Politics of Disgust, showing as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival, does just that while leaving audiences cackling with laughter.

The production involves the audience being called to an emergency meeting with drag queen HR managers, Susyan Pork (played by Constance Henry) and Susan Beanz (played by Niall Keane). The theatre company, Play Not Funny, explains: “Armed with markers, Post-it notes and some truly severe haircuts, the pair embark on an increasingly unhinged attempt to teach audiences how to spot propaganda, interrogate the politics of disgust and survive their increasingly absurd reality”.

Politics of Disgust is running at the Bewley Theatre Café between September 8 and 13, written by Henry and Keane and directed by Rachel Thornton.

Before arriving at this year’s Dublin Fringe Festival, the show was developed at the Scene + Heard festival. Speaking to GCN, Keane reflected on the experience, saying “In Scene + Heard, you’re so desperate to get everything ready to go on stage and you make all these decisions that aren’t like ‘This is the best decision’, it’s more ‘This is what we have’.”

When asked what they are taking from the Scene + Heard run into Dublin Fringe Festival, Henry said, “The thing I find the most exciting about getting to do a show after it’s been done is figuring out how to make it better. We’ve seen what works and what doesn’t and now we actually get to make those changes, make the characters feel more alive.”

Henry also discussed how her experience of online far-right discourse inspired the show, saying, “Over the last few years, watching the rise of fascism, it’s just exponentially gotten worse every year. Living as a trans woman, I am very scared a lot of the time, but it’s also very funny how cartoonish a lot of the people we end up hearing about are.”

She continued, “The silver lining with fascism is that it’s really silly, really absurd. There’s a real absurdist, surrealist quality to our show because of that. We wanted to induce it with that sense of silliness”.

 

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One of the greatest strengths of the show is the dynamic between Susyan Pork and Susan Beanz. Director Rachel Thornton shared, “When I’m doing absurdist work, I think you can go as crazy as you want as long as there is an anchor… The core of it has to be character. What interested me more than the political ideas was the tragic fall apart of a dynamic, a united front becoming more splintered as they go further down this right-wing rabbit hole”.

On stage, Pork and Beanz’s chaotic energy bounces off each other like Bugs and Daffy in a Looney Tunes cartoon, leading to many memorable moments of comedic conflict. Keane added that their acting approach was influenced by the idea of sardonic camp, which he describes as “acidic and purposely ironic”. This is especially evident when the two lip-sync to audios of popular far-right figures such as Donald Trump, Ben Shapiro and Alex Jones. Their exaggerated movements bring attention to the silliness of the rhetoric, thus diluting its power to harm.

Henry explained, “There’s a story in every written version of the Stonewall riots that when the police came in and put people up in line, instead of leaving as normal, they had gathered outside. So, there’s this big crowd outside the bar, and when all the people who were largely caught for cross-dressing were being taken out to the patrol wagon, they were posing and making a show of it, getting the audience to laugh along.”

She went on, “That sense of like entertainment and tongue-in-cheek fun and mockery is so integral to not only drag but to queer ways of being”.

During this moment, many members of the audience were laughing and singing along, creating a light-hearted atmosphere of community. However, it may be that the show sometimes requires those watching to be familiar enough with online culture to understand the context of the jokes and references being made.

Furthermore, Thornton provided some insight into her creative approach to the show, explaining, “A rule of thumb I use for my own writing is ‘forget the silly’. There needs to be a moment in the show where all the silly stuff that came before it is forgotten and people just focus on either the sadness or the tragedy, but also this seriousness couldn’t happen without the silly.”

She continued, “When I was looking at this show, I think the ‘forget the silly’ happens at the end, when there is a very real political moment that makes you realise, oh no, characters like these are so prevalent and they’re so real, they’re not just cartoons. We have to deal with them on a daily basis.”

The ending of The Politics of Disgust is sure to make you smile while also reflecting on the profound political meaning beneath the show’s campy surface. Get your tickets now via the Dublin Fringe Festival website!