Toronto’s leading queer theatre space Buddies in Bad Times presents PIG, a complex multi-layered story about perversion, love and making art
Even considering the current fashion for representations of BDSM in the arts, Tim Luscombe’s new play PIG is… a lot. At the same time, the great pleasure of having a world-class queer theatre in Toronto is that we get to make our own choices about whether we prefer to see it, rather than having it erased from our theatrical landscapes by prudish directors afraid to upset their patrons. Brendan Healy, artistic director of Buddies In Bad Times and director of this world premiere play is quite clearly not afraid to be upsetting.
PIG is a complex, multi-layered story about respectability, desire, love, perversion and making art. The official synopsis says that it’s about bug chasing and civil partnerships, but it reminded me of nothing so much as the centagenarian quoted in Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Eat, Pray Love, who says “There are only two questions that human beings have ever fought over, all through history. ‘How much do you love me?’ And, ‘who’s in charge?'” More than any other play I’ve ever seen, these questions beat out of the text and staging, imposing themselves none-too-gently on the audience. And even still, I left feeling like Luscombe had tied the play up in knots of cleverness, trying to prove that it really was art and not (merely) perversion.
