Boys Just Want to Find Love

From Caroline Osella of "Rewilded Anthropologist"

Addam Ledamyen

tagged me in the above Note earlier in the week, and to get some perspective, I went snooping to see how big the problem is here on Substack.

Turns out it’s not just the Today in Culture feature that pops up in Notes, but the entire Browse:Culture function which is rife with anti-trans articles, and a Leaderboard full of people actively seeking to define trans people out of existence. One article suggests it’s time for LGB’s to divorce ourselves from TQ+’s. (Nope. Never gonna happen—not at Qstack anyway. Just to be clear, Qstack is trans-inclusive, and trans-exclusive Substacks will not be listed.)

Please read

Robin Taylor (he/him)

’s post “Spilling T about the LGB” about this very problem, including how much trans people have contributed to the queer rights movement, and how often they’ve been slapped in the face in return.

There are a lot of people with a lot of subscribers making $$ through and for Substack on the euphemistic reframing of trans rights as a cancel-hungry “gender ideology”—here’s an interesting article on Vox by Katelyn Burns which clarifies the issue for anyone wondering how we got here. It’s from a little while ago, but does a good job of cutting through the increasingly loud noises from what is essentially a right-wing, conservative movement fomenting fear and dismissing bodily autonomy.

I’ve set up the Discussion Thread “Down with Phobes” for anyone who wants to vent, organize, or otherwise weigh-in on all the -phobias and -isms, and how to combat them - links to organizations and groups already working on it are very welcome!

🚨Announcements

• Once Daily News
  is looking for panelists to join mental health advocate Brittany Krystantos in a virtual discussion they’re hosting later this month. Info HERE at Qstack Collaborations.

• A big thank you to

  Victoria
  of
  Carer Mentor: Empathy & Inspiration
  who reached out to Qstack with resources for anyone who needs support as a caregiver—access these HERE.

• Hard to believe it’s been 20 years since Massachusetts lead the way on same-sex marriage—here’s a profile on that early win:
  20 years ago, same-sex marriage in Massachusetts opened a door for LGBTQ rights nationwide: The lawyer who won marriage rights for same-sex couples in Massachusetts reflects on the historic decision and continued fights for LGBTQ rights by Jo Yurcaba

• Big WELCOME to new Qstack listings for:

  The Lesfic Self-Publisher
  -
  Nic Antoinette
  -
  Jaimes H-Y
  -
  Alexa Juanita Jordan
  - and THE
  Susie Bright
  (big fan of Susie ever since she wrote about the bedtime ritual with her kid, swooping around the room to the theme song of Star Trek: Next Generation.)

Got a big announcement, an article or event somewhere other than Substack, a special offer, a new book published? DM me to include in this space.

We’d love to feature many more reviews and profiles of recent, current and on-going LGBTQ+ cultural happenings—especially books, films, music, and events which folks can access from anywhere on their own time.

Thanks to

Caroline Osella

for this review of ‘Scenes With Boys’ in London—we’ll be keeping an eye out for future Mad Jacks productions and playwright, Sam Smith.

Boys Just Want to Find Love

Review of ‘Scenes With Boys’ - Riverside Studio, London, March 11th 2024

By

Caroline Osella

of

Rewilded Anthropologist

---

Emergent writer Sam Smith’s Scenes With Boys treads familiar ground - the challenges of millennial life, love and friendship and the ways that gendered expectations fuck you up. But Boys brings a couple of twists: the gendering of these boys - and the currents of desire, affection, indifference and desperation that flow between them - are complex. Queerness, neurodivergence, and the miseries and euphoria of embodiment weave through this story of self-discovery, growth through loss - and ultimate resilience.  

Audience uncertainty about the relation of each of these characters to the status ‘boy’ has to be unravelled slowly - as it is for the boys themselves. Who are Ro, Jam and Freddie, we ask, wincing as we watch a troubled Ro pursue a clearly hopeless passion for Jam, the only one of the core cast of 3 or the wider ensemble of 9 who appears able to inhabit a consistent and relatively untroubled relationship to gendering. Instinctual and easy, Jam offers painful contrast to the awkward Ro.  

All photos by Mad Jacks/Sam Smith

More, the play asks - what does it mean when high school bullying robs your boyhood? What happens when the femme-presenting queer adult-you still hopes and wants to hold a relationship to past boyness? 

The play explores all this via a blend of physical theatre / choreo (extremely well done), meticulous, tiny gestures and impassioned dialogues. If the talk between the friends feels a bit - well, adolescent - that’s exactly because it’s meant to. Quoting poetry, archly making connections both pop and high culture and spending hours analysing their inner life and how they want to present to the world are as much a recognisable and relatable part of this life moment as is the house-sharing setup and the cheap wine in mugs, wavy club nights and chaotic bus-stop waits portrayed on stage. We are clearly in that space after the teens, where independence and alleged adulthood offer thrills and misery a-plenty.

As such, the play cleverly messes with time and change. In an early scene, Ro acts flip and blase about high-school horror: “the bullying years”. We sense and witness the trauma and emotional damage behind this minimisation, however, as Ro unravels throughout the play. We begin to wonder whether Ro is trapped in learned patterns of harming themself by means of the other people they seek out as instrument of their pain, even coming to a place of longing for literal wounds: abuse as the only form of attention that’s familiar.

Ro is self-absorbed to the point of narcissism, self-destructive in behaviour, self-pitying and oblivious to the suffering of others - until patient Freddie calls a reality-check moment. Yet Ro is also, we recognise, painted into a corner by life and social norms and expectations. Wasn’t Sylvia Plath (quoted, tellingly, in the script) also a right royal pain in the arse to her friends?  

By the end of the play, a twist towards the meta (which also prods us to think about questions of representation and a writer’s obligation to ethics) shows Ro more assured, less dramatic, calmer. There’s a sense of gender euphoria and a broadened understanding of how love and desire work.  Older and wiser? Hmm, maybe. We sense that the year of misery in love is already digested and will probably be referred to as “the unrequited love year” or somesuch. Is this genuine healing and growth? Or just that familiar old queer strategy of camp, repurposed for the new generation?     

This kind of time-looping and mirroring is set to work in the play to good effect. The public toilet dilemma is by now a cliche discussion in sex/gender studies - but very much a core issue in everyday life. A mirrored scene of boys’ and girls’ bathrooms brings this alive, with reflections about the lack of symmetry between experiences.

Later, as Ro reaches meltdown point, the ensemble appear, fracturing Ro into gestures of desperation, glamour, faked assurance, fury, uncertainty, loneliness and anxiety. We are reminded of the multitudes inside us all - and the fragility of all our acts. 

The cast held this well-crafted play together in a tight performance, after a slightly confusing start gave way to a story that drew us in, exasperated and wincing for the characters as they stumbled towards wisdom and something like peace. The physical theatre aspect was skillfully deployed and especially well-executed.  

I'll be waiting to see what Sam Smith and Mad Jacks, do next. 

---

CAST

Ro - Cavan Malone (they/them) 

Jam - Joe Harrington (he/him)

Freddie - Ki Griffin (he/they)

Boy - Jay Lafayette Valentine (they/them) 

James - Luc de Freitas (he/she/they)

Robbie - Archie Bush (he/him) 

Shoal of Boys - Rachel Andrews (she/her), Daze Hingorani (they/he), Matisse Ciel Pagès (they/them), Elliot Douglas (he/him) 

Company: Mad Jacks 

Caroline Osella

: Rewilded Anthropologist. Ex academic anthropologist in UK. Now freelance researcher, writer and creative methods consultant. Big WIP is a novel: issue-based but character-driven. Stay with me through 2024 to hear more.