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Steven Dawson is not only one of Australia’s most prolific writers for the stage, he’s quite possibly the dirtiest too. No, seriously! How else do you explain him taking out Edinburgh Fringe Festival’s award for a play with the ‘filthiest sex scene not involving nudity’. Put simply, his new work – Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger – is a raucous rollercoaster ride of ribald humour and dirty, dirty imaginings. What starts as a harmless online flirtation soon turns into an X-rated daydream… and it’s all appearing at this year’s Pride Festival Theatre season. Dawson took time out to talk the filthy talk about Buttboy and Tigger with OUTinPerth’s Scott-Patrick Mitchell.
What can you tell us about Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger?
It comes direct from the Edinburgh Fringe where it played to packed houses and had 4 and 5 star ratings across the board – unusual for a gay play especially in that city. We played to as many straights as gays. They love their filth in Scotland. The story is about two guys who try to hook up over the net but circumstances conspire against them so they decide to do the next best thing and play out sexual scenarios over a chat line. In this imagined world they move away from their keyboards and play out the scenes. I had wanted to do something about people hooking up over the internet after hearing about it from a few actor friends who were always doing it. Some with more success than others. I had part of the title ‘Butt Boy’ from a postcard off one of those early 70’s porn paperbacks. And believe me, there was a time when they came in very handy…especially on a long tour. As with all my plays I gave myself an opening night as a deadline that I had to stick to, then just sat down and started to write. As I progressed the lines started to blur between online fantasy and porn scenarios. I cast two actors I hadn’t worked with before then started rehearsals with only the first scene down and fragments of others. Each rehearsal I would come in with more pages, hoping to gross them out with some of the more florid moments. They loved it and I knew I was on to a good thing. The fantasies were becoming more surreal and so over the top they bordered on pornographic. But underneath all the role-playing both characters had issues that they aren’t ready to confront. The story shifts dramatically in the last 15 minutes and becomes something very different to how it started, and with surprising consequences.
What sets this play apart from your previous works?
There is no deep message in this one [not that there was in any of the others either]. Like all my work it can be fast, funny and full of outrageous one-liners. I just set the bar much higher when it comes to filth. At some times it is just so pornographic it is like watching a road accident. You can’t look away. Very confronting… and very horny.
This play deals with issues of online ‘courting’ and ‘hook-ups’ – what comments are you making about gay cruising?
I’m not too familiar with the current gay culture [whatever that is] but I do know that having more than one gay bar in town does not a culture make. As for my cruising days, they are long ago and quite possibly in some parallel universe. Online courting and hook ups are just one of the options available to us but the internet is for everyone and can fulfill many needs. I neither hate it nor love it. As long as we all recognise that it is there just as a tool. The choices we make are what matters. Neither of the boys know where they are going with this. At one point each thinks he is in control but emotion, passion and longing governs us all and we don’t always get to call the shots.
What’s a gay mans obsession with ‘hooking-up’?I am not a spokesman for my people. At various times of our lives sex defines us and drives us all. Gay or straight. Hooking up certainly isn’t restricted to gay men but gay men, as a rule, have always been ahead of the pack and know how to utilise what is on offer.
So how would you best surmise Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger?
If you want to laugh, cry and be horrified with all the smut I put onstage then you will love it. It is definitely not one for the prudes but you will have a good time. How else would we have won the The Scotsman’s ‘Filthiest Sex Scene Not Involving Nudity’ award? You will walk out of it feeling very warm… in more ways than one…
The super smutty Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger hits PICA from October 7 to 11, at 9pm. Bookings can be made by ringing PICA on 9228 6300 or online at www.pica.org.au, but hurry – seats for Adventures of Buttboy and Tigger are selling fast!
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
