Art before politics, says LGBTQ+ British plawright Mark Ravenhill
LGBTQ+ theatre should put art before politics and stop pushing a social agenda, said top British playwright Mark Ravenhill ahead of his “queer reinvention” of Puccini’s opera “La Boheme”.
Known globally for his 1990s megahit “Shopping and Fucking”, Ravenhill said LGBTQ+ arts must first and foremost entertain; he even rewrote the official website description of his new opera to reflect that priority. “I’m not particularly interested in art as an agent of social change,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview ahead of Thursday’s gala opening. “I think what we can do ….
is emphasise the fun and joy of those things. We don’t have to say this is terribly socially important and here are the issues that we’ve covered.” Ravenhill’s production of Puccini’s tale of 1890s bohemian Paris life, playing at London’s King’s Head theatre, casts two gay men in the lead roles of poet Rodolfo and the central female character of lowly seamstress Mimi.
The show, which runs until May 28, has parallels with his own life of 30 years ago, according to Ravenhill, who is now 55. “A group of flatmates struggling to pay the bills; the arrival of a troubled but ultimately doomed newcomer; the hovering presence of the older man with money,” he recollected in the Guardian newspaper. “I see that my 27-year-old self had a lot in common with Rodolfo and Mimi and their bohemian cohort.” Ravenhill said he made the gender swap for artistic reasons rather than to hammer home any LGBTQ+ message. “I guess there’s something political about (giving the female role to a man),” Ravenhill said. “But there’s also just something joyful and beautiful and artistic about it.
