Suspicious Gay views Illinoise, the Musical on Broadway, New York City.
Rating: *****
Dear reader,
It is often said that musicals where characters do not speak are unnecessarily deprived.
Well, may I say, whoever believes this clearly has not had the pleasure of viewing Illinoise, the Musical, on Broadway in New York City.
The opening of the play is somewhat concerning, as the actors – who have a combined age of about 22 years – left this author fearing we were about to spend the next one hour and 30 minutes being treated to a mind-numbing rendition of Gen Z music. (For those who are not aware, this normally involves a man wearing a dress howling into a microphone while people of no-specific-gender behind him hit dustbins). But I challenge even the most fastidious of reviewers not to have been enthralled by this production.
The play opens with some friends meeting at a campfire in a quiet woodland, where each appears to tell a story from their young adult lives. We have the funny story, we have the sad and we have the horrific.
But, just when you’re getting into the swing of it, the cast reveals that this was just a warm-up for the main act.
The focus of the play is a man finding out that God has a slightly different plan for him to that which his small-town Christian parents envisaged (Cue gasps from audience members and the sounds of breaking crockery). This is not entirely unexpected, as the play’s music is by Sufjan Stevens – who is also behind the tunes for the homosexual-rousing movie ‘Call Me By Your Name’.
Was this level of disaster absolutely necessary?, I thought, glancing at my 6ft 5in sobbing companion
Suspicious gay
The young man travels first to Chicago, and then to New York City, alongside another male – friend or lover? – before a tear-filled phone call brings his companion back home.
I shan’t reveal any further details of the plot except to say that what follows gives tragedy a whole new meaning. Tragic event is piled on top of tragic event, and just when you think they couldn’t get any more unlucky, you have to think again. Was this level of disaster absolutely necessary?, I thought, glancing at my 6ft 5in Colombian companion – who was sobbing his way through what remained of the performance.
This musical’s great strength is, surprisingly, the absence of the spoken word from its actors.
Normally, one can lazily follow a plot by listening to actors lines — with the brain barely engaged. But in its absence, your neurons are forced to buzz to create their own interpretation of events. It’s only when you leave the theatre that you realize quite how different those interpretations are, as they explode in a happy kaleidoscope of colors at the dinner table. ‘He was his boyfriend,’ yelled one friend. ‘No, they were clearly just friends,’ said another, ‘you could tell because the other guy winked at a girl earlier’. A third said: ‘It’s clearly of someone refusing to admit that they like men.’
Dear reader, if you wish to be enthralled for an evening, then this show is right for you. Tick from me.
Suspicious Gay