Playwright Victor Rodger, whose 2013 work Black Faggot has been brought back to the stage. Photo / Dean Purcell
Playwright Victor Rodger, whose 2013 work Black Faggot has been brought back to the stage. Photo / Dean Purcell
Opinion
More than a decade ago, Victor Rodger’s play Black Faggot bit back at attacks by Destiny Church on the rainbow community. With a new production about to be staged in Auckland, he asks how much has really changed. As told to Joanna Wane
A few years ago, I was lookingthrough an old high-school diary for a show I was taking part in called Bad Diaries Salon.
It was from 1986, and I’d written about how I was watching The Young and the Restless and not studying for UE. I’d also written about a documentary on Harvey Milk, the gay San Francisco politician who was assassinated.
The documentary was good, I wrote, but I didn’t like how homosexuality was portrayed as “normal”. I have no memory of writing that, but I was so struck by how I’d lied to myself within the pages of my own diary.
I don’t consider myself a Christian, but I speak fluent Christian-ish from my upbringing. My parents are Christians in a born-again church. My biological dad was a pastor. So, I’m au fait with that world.
She let me do swirly swirlies in her blue dress when I was going through my Deborah Kerr phase, from The King and I, and she got me the Barbie dolls I craved as a young fella.
She was still surprised when I came out when I was 26, but she’s always just let me be.
When Destiny Church led its “Enough is Enough” march on Parliament in 2004 against the Civil Union Bill [giving legal recognition to same-sex relationships], I knew without a doubt that at least one of those young men would be gay. Hating on themselves and marching against themselves.
I wanted to write something metaphorically for that kid. Then, in 2012, there were more protests against the marriage equality bill, with members of the Pasifika community coming out against it. I knew it was time to finally get over the line.
Victor Rodger: "Some seriously appalling things are going down in our own backyard." Photo / Dean Purcell
Black Faggot premiered at Auckland’s Basement Theatre in 2013. I wanted it to be funny, which it is, and I also wanted to diversify the spectrum of Samoan queer characters, who until then had often been typified by fa’afafine as objects of mirth, with no complexity or layers.
Two actors play multiple roles, mostly queer Samoan men, from super camp to super butch and everything in between. There’s also a fa’afafine, a Samoan mum, and a pumping iron straight brother, but the spine of the show is a relationship between a young Samoan man on the down low and an out-and-proud Samoan man.
When I heard The Court Theatre in Christchurch wanted Black Faggot on its programme this year, I wondered if it was still relevant. I’d thought about doing it myself in 2023, for the 10th anniversary, and had asked myself the same question.
A few years ago, I was a dramaturg on a trans rom-com about a Tongan fakaleiti at high school and the captain of the First XV, who takes a bet that he can make her fall in love with him.
When we did our first showing to a group of students, they were just so invested in the trans main character having a happy ending. For me, as an older, queer person, I was blown away because that never would have happened in my era.
Destiny Church members wearing Man Up T-shirts disrupt the Auckland Rainbow Parade on Ponsonby Road in February.
But as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. I was in the UK when I saw the headlines: “Brian Tamaki’s Destiny Church pride protests: Te Atatū witness describes terror inside library”. I wasn’t expecting something like that to happen, but it didn’t surprise me, either.
We are living through a period in history right now that is as startling as it is unstable. And here in Aotearoa, we can’t kid ourselves that we’re in a position to look overseas and say “Well, at least it’s not that bad here”, because some seriously appalling things are going down in our own backyard.
Back in 2013, I wanted to pull Black Faggot. I was unravelling over all sorts of other life stuff and had convinced myself it was the worst piece of shit that had ever been committed to paper. Everything felt pretty grim and dark.
The premiere got a standing ovation, but even that offered no relief. With this new season, I’ve been able to engage with the show from a much better place.
I forbade my mother from seeing it, but she disobeyed me and went to the opening night in Christchurch, which is where I grew up. She’s always been concerned with the amount of swearing in my work and that people will think she raised me to talk in the gutter. I did that all on my own.
She’s also not a great fan of sex, and there’s a lot of sex talk in the show. But she coped and was blown away by the two actors, one of whom is the son of a family friend from the same church.
There are moments in it when you can hear a pin drop, like when the young Christian character keeps praying to God to be made straight. That resonates with so many of us who’ve been through the same thing, just wanting to be #normal.
On the night I went, there was recognition and there was laughter, but the overriding emotion was celebratory. That’s not a word I would have used, but seeing it now, I thought, yes, this is absolutely a celebration. And a necessary one.
Victor Rodger is an award-winning playwright based in Wellington and a 2024 Arts Laureate. The new production of Black Faggot, directed by Anapela Polata’ivao (who starred in the feature film Tinā), has just completed a four-week season at The Court in Christchurch and is on at Auckland’s Q Theatre from June 25 to 29.
