A Review of Straddle: A Fantasia on Gay Rage at The Bread & Roses Theatre

The first thing you notice when you come across the one man play Straddle: A Fantasia on Gay Rage is undeniably the marketing (possibly immediately after the title), which utilises uniquely unhinged images of writer-actor Peter Todd. Memorable and more than a little crazy, this marketing promises a fun ride and something very gay. The recurring sight of sunflowers in the marketing gains significance once you begin to watch the show, and by the time you leave surrounded by the scent of the destroyed flowers you truly appreciate this well chosen motif. For me, as I’m sure for many, they represent the height of summer as well as death by suicide, this double meaning of light and dark being an equally fitting description of the play itself.

Straddle tells the story of a teenage boy coming to terms with his sexuality, a story we have all seen a hundred times before, particularly in this Fringe style set up. The challenge in moments like these is to find a way to create something that doesn’t feel like a story we know. Yes, the play relies on familiar storylines, motifs and cliches, but it successfully manages to bend them into something, if not unique, then certainly new. One of the key aspects of this is the writing. The power of storytelling is in the things left unsaid, in the silence you leave within the tale. It is clear that Todd understands this, understands when things needed to be spelled out and when one can rely on the audience’s intelligence. The various forms of storytelling utilised through the play end in poetry, in a monologue filled with lines which are half cliche, half beautiful reality that draw this story to a close. No matter how much of the story is real and how much taken from the writer’s imagination, there is no denying that the statements he makes are true. There is something to be found in the messiness of half lived love affairs and resistance of simply existing.

Despite the theatre’s location in the upstairs of a bar, the set is not the limited token gesture you might expect, but rather a wonderfully cluttered and lived in feeling space. There is the perfect sense of a teenage boy’s bedroom, mountains of dirty washing cleverly concealing costume and props at an easily accessible distance. While there is a detailed set, there is also ample use of projection, the room becoming a classroom at certain moments. These clever interjections, the constant changing from narrative to lesson format and back enable to the play to escape the easy trap of lethargy that many one-person performances fall into. Instead, the pace is maintained throughout and the audience never loses interest. Moving between these styles and between storytelling and physical enactment, the play keeps audiences on their toes.

It is in the more physical moments that Todd’s talent really shines through, the actor being able to confidently portray interactions without the need for a second actor. Not that he is completely alone throughout, as there is use of voiceovers and ample breaking of the fourth wall. Todd’s performance is equal parts moving and hilarious, strongly portraying his character in arguably the best performance I have seen him in to date. The role moves between the tightness of more naturalistic acting and the looseness of physical theatre, relying heavily on the latter. This moving between styles could have felt forced or even a little jarring, but instead suits the story perfectly and is one of the clear strengths of the piece.

Dramatic and over the top and so much fun, tender and cringe and thought provoking, this is a fast paced and well thought-out piece of theatre which was able to balance lightheartedness with more serious moments of heart-rending sadness. It’s the familiar story of a boy coming to grips with his sexuality in an unforgiving world, but no matter how familiar this story is it still manages to bring a fresh perspective and fresh energy to the testimonies. There is something deliciously Fringe about it which made me feel as though I was back in Edinburgh for a moment.

Image Courtesy of Scar Theatre