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Re-membering AIDS, Dis-membering Form

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Abstract

This essay explores the relationship that some twentieth-century Western plays about HIV and AIDS have to contemporary performance. The discussion looks to specific histories of performance to connect and augment current ideas about forgetting HIV and AIDS in queer performance. By describing, examining and providing a particular reading of an act by Bourgeoisie, a drag performer, in a nightclub in London, the essay explores the way in which contemporary twenty-first century low-brow, popular performance work inculcates the politics of remembering and dealing with HIV and AIDS as both an historical moment and an ongoing challenge.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I am keen to point out that people living with HIV and people living with AIDS are not interchangeable phrases. I have avoided compressing these terms into the acronyms PLWHIV and PWA along with guidance from joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS 2015.

  2. 2.

    Part I of Angels was first produced in a workshop production in 1990 and then as a full production on Broadway in 1991, and part II was first produced as readings across 1991–2, with a full production in 1992.

  3. 3.

    Even a small glance at the available literature brings forth a diverse range of discourse about Angels such as: Russell Vandenbroucke (2016) in relation to violence; Denis Flannery (2014) in relation to a Dutch production that uses David Bowie’s music; Ranen Omer-Sherman (2007) and Yair Lipshitz (2012), in relation to Jewishness and scripture; Stephanie Byttebier (2011) in relation to pain and identity; Claudia Barnett (2010) in relation to purgatory; Catherine Stevenson (2005) in relation to motherhood and Benilde Montgomery (1998) in relation to the medieval mystery structural elements of the play.

  4. 4.

    However, it is worth recognising that there are other narratives about the play too. Sarah Schulman in this volume (Chap. 18) notes that the depiction of a gay man abandoned because of his HIV status does not reflect the way that the community rallied. Shulman critiques the work by making the point strongly that this kind of abandonment was extremely rare but Angels in America relies on this desertion as key to the narrative drive.

  5. 5.

    My Night With Reg was first produced in 1994, and had a major London production in 2015 that was nominated for an Olivier award for best revival.

  6. 6.

    The music track that Bougie uses is resonant with the kind of representations on stage. The track ‘Do It Again’ (2014), a collaboration between Norwegian duo Röyksopp and Swedish singer-songwriter Robyn, contains lyrics that chime with the reading I give and clearly translates into the passion that Bougie presents and the messages generated by their act.

  7. 7.

    PrEP stands for pre-exposure prophylaxis and is a combination of antiretroviral drugs that lower the chances of HIV transmitting to a person who has taken this regime.

  8. 8.

    Patient Zero, here, refers to both the recently debunked idea that there was a single person at the source of the early transmission and spread of HIV and also journalist Randy Shilts’ use of the term in his book And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, which chronicles the early years of the AIDS crisis in the USA.

  9. 9.

    There are other ‘turns’ that Bougie does in a similar vein, in particular spray painting themself, lip synching to Judith Butler , performances about Chemsex and a critique of phone sex apps.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, University of London, London, UK

    Stephen Farrier

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  1. Stephen Farrier
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. VCA, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Alyson Campbell

  2. Department of Culture and Aesthetics, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Dirk Gindt

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Farrier, S. (2018). Re-membering AIDS, Dis-membering Form. In: Campbell, A., Gindt, D. (eds) Viral Dramaturgies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70317-6_7

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