Shove It Down My Throat: a mystery becomes a big glittery gay theatrical feast
5 Apr 2019

by Drew Rowsome - Production photos by Jeremy Mimnagh; Photos by Tanja Tiziana

Shove It Down My Throat is not just gloriously theatrical, it is gloriously gay. Yes, it attempts to wrestle with the varying truths of the Luke O'Donovan case by chronicling playwright and lead character Johnnie Walker's research and investigations, but Shove It Down My Throat refuses to be a procedural or documentary theatre. Walker begins by entering through a theatre curtain that stretches the width of Buddies' mainstage space. He speaks directly to the audience, ignoring the fourth wall, and taking us into his charming self-effacing confidence (and yes I checked, there is a trigger warning posted about "Partial Nudity").

Just as we begin to worry that this might be a tough balance to sustain, Walker welcomes us into a recreation of Buddies' dressing room. In all its shabby glory. Evoking, with a gay twist, the Candyman/Bloody Mary myth, Walker summons the spirits of former dressing room denizens. They assist and interfere in his quest while camping it up delightfully. A lot of dry and potentially disturbing exposition is delivered with hilarious and effervescent effortlessness. A shovelful of glittery sugar makes the medicine go down.

The main plotline weaves in and out amongst a host of other concerns and crucial digressions, all dealing with the state of gay, past and present. Some of the spirits are satirical representations of notorious Buddies alumni, all are recognizable stereotypes/archetypes extraordinarily embodied by a rock solid ensemble. Daniel Carter is the sexy sex-obsessed slut; Willlard Gillard (Boylesque TO) is the older bitter, imperious and defiant queen; Kwaku Okyere (The Seat Next to the King) is struggling to be woke without losing his queer sass; Craig Pike (Lulu v7) is the hot masc4masc otter who passes for straight for survival (and who, fortunately, also believes in partial nudity); and Anders Yates is the overtly theatrical comedy queen who is always ready with an acidic quip. 

The lines fly thick and fast and we look at O'Donovan's story from multiple angles. It is a theatrical recreation of the confusion and shattering of preconceptions that is Walker's story, and that of anyone who googles O'Donovan and tries to sort it all out. Notably all of the angles and viewpoints are emphatically gay. Gay male and cisgendered with the accent on white. Enter Heath V Salazar to knock every preconception and supposition on its ass. O'Donovan didn't identify as gay, he identified/identifies as a poly bisexual anarchist, so was it a gay bashing? 

Fortunately Salazar has a lot of spunk and charisma as it is an underwritten part with a fairy godmother (without the pun implied) component that never quite gels. But the audience is already deeply involved in both O'Donovan's story and Walker's quest for the truth, a truth that gets more slippery and convoluted with every revelation. Parallels to Jussie Smollet are impossible to ignore which drags in the uneasy relationship between gay men and celebrity. Walker crafts some uproarious one-liners and one deeply affecting salute to Julia Sugarbaker, that gives Gillard a line, and later a scene, that bring down the house. And then makes everyone think about our own preconceptions critically. Content equals form.

The second half of Shove It Down My Throat is not as successful. The multiplicity of ideas that were threaded through the first half begin to meander and scenes making a concise point are stretched past their effectiveness. The visuals are starkly sumptuous but the grip on the matters at hand become as murky as O'Donovan's plight. Or duplicity. That may have been a conceptual choice but it feels more like trying to cram in too much. The finale, where Walker meets O'Donovan and incarnates him to be questioned by the spirits, is gut-wrenching and powerful. It pulls the first half into stark relief and while providing no answers, is as satisfying as real life allows.

Because the Luke O'Donovan story is probably impossible to resolve in any definitive way, Shove It Down My Throat sheds its documentary roots and soars into the theatrical. It is a fitting choice, after its many workshops and revisions, for Buddies' 40th anniversary season. It grapples with the concept of gay history - the peeling posters on the wall of the recreated dressing room are as evocative as the spirits - and just what does gay - or is it LGBTQetc? - need to do to survive. What and who are allies? It is a lot to have shoved down one's throat but that glittery theatrical sugar makes it a banquet worth digging into and delighting in.