Quickie with Alastair Curtis

Colin: Hi Alastair! What the BUTT is ‘Spook’?
Alistair: So, crazily enough, ‘Spook’ is the world premiere of a play from 1985, written by Alan Bowne. He was a fantastic writer from California who passed away in 1989, leaving behind several plays that were sadly never performed in his lifetime.
What’s it all about?
It’s a sort of romp through rural Massachusetts involving two women, a local vicar and the ghost of a 18th century smuggler who was hanged for his crimes many years ago. As the play makes note of many, many times, he’s also very hung. He proceeds to seduce each person in the household in order to dispatch them to far-flung locations to retrieve drugs that he hid back when he was a twinky pirate in the 1700s.
It sounds super camp… I was looking at the script this morning, there’s even a character called “Mr. Butts”.
It’s incredibly smutty throughout, as you’d expect. Our audience comes for a good time, and this feels like the right play for them. We’ve been staging the ‘AIDS plays’ for two years now, so we know what resonates.
Sounds like it. You must spend a lot of time digging through archives, how do you choose which plays to stage next?
It’s mostly trying to find writers who have an often wayward sensibility or shine a different light on a part of queer history that may have been neglected or ignored. Alan Bowne was a phenomenal writer who wrote half a dozen plays, but many of them weren’t really successful in his own time and have since fallen out of print.
I can imagine you feel a real sense of duty in reviving them.
For sure – I feel that the project came out of a sense of rage. There’s a lost generation of playwrights whose work has been obscured, because maybe they didn’t have the careers that they would have gone on to have since their lives were cut short by HIV just before they hit the big time, or because the work they were doing was so forward thinking. So there’s a rage in this act of historical reclamation, but there’s also a yearning for a connection to elders, between generations.
Yeah, for sure. In staging them, do you feel much of a connection with the writers themselves – or even recognize anything of yourself in them?
I feel like I’ve gotten to know the writers through talking to their friends. One of the biggest things that I’ve discovered is that this wasn’t a very long time ago, and actually so many of their friends survived and they all knew and gossiped about each other. This constellation of queer culture that you and I are familiar with in the present day was exactly the same 40 or 50 years ago. It’s been beautiful to get to know how the writers lived through those who are still with us.
Have any of them come to see the plays yet?
Yeah, actually. We did a play in February called ‘Reasons for Staying’ by Colm Ó Clúbhán – our first Irish writer – who was a member of the Brixton Faeries, a sort of radical theater activist group in South London. He wrote several plays, including one that starred really early Graham Norton! A lot of Colm’s good friends came along to our production, and it was really touching because I hadn’t realized how well they knew the play. I kept looking at some of them in the middle of the performance thinking “oh god I hope you like it,” and noticed that some of them knew the words, because they were speaking along to it. That evening felt like a really special encounter that we’re always tried to aim for with the project.
Sounds touching! Do you feel that you’re channeling the writers through these plays, or are you very much outside of the process?
It feels very exciting for me to discover some of these people and be able to put them on stage. There’s a certain feeling of like… “if no one else is doing this, I’d better do it.” The best feeling is just sitting at the back of the auditorium and being able to share my excitement with a group of other gays, basking in the glory of the play and letting the writer commune with us.
Is there much of a sexual side to any of the performances?
I mean, the toilets in our theater are a notorious cruising spot. I’ve known people who have met their future partners or current partners at our events, which is really rewarding.
What about on-stage?
Oh, on stage, yeah… I feel like I’m always choosing plays that have a slight sexuality, because I find that most exciting to see. We had a play recently about a “straight” man who chains up his burglar to the kitchen sink, and over the course of an evening, proceeds to slowly fall in love with him. We spent the whole evening metaphorically edging the audience into thinking that they’re going to kiss – when they nearly do at the end of the play, the gasp was incredible.
What’s the casting process like for these roles?
So, um… For Spook, I’ve been trying to cast a sexy ghost.  He needs to seduce an audience while in full 18th century pirate garb, which I’m sure is a kink for someone.
What about you… do you have any 18th century sex icons?
I really like the facial hair. The really thick sideburns are something that I go for.  I mean, I look at the poster for Spook and I’m like “that’s my ideal man”…which is ridiculous, of course, but I think an 18th century man would really do me well… it’s the excessive hirsuteness of it, you know? And the amount of layering of clothing… there’s all sorts of tantalizing prospects!
I think we could all do with some of that. How quickly do you fall in love?  
Too quickly! And fall out of love even more quickly.  It’s a really dangerous combination.

We’re almost out of time, so let’s get back to the plays – you’ve got Spook premiering soon, what else is on your agenda?
After Spook we’ve got another play in December by a writer from Colorado called George Whitmore. He was a fantastic novelist and was part of the Violet Quill, a group of post-Stonewall gay male writers alongside the likes of Edmund White and Andrew Holleran. He wrote a play called ‘The Rights’, set on Fire Island, about queer assimilation and aging, and sort of the commodification of queer culture, which feels really prescient. Before that, we’re doing a series of informal workshops with guest directors who are coming in and bringing to life some lost queer gems. We’re starting with a monologue by Jim Juul, who wrote this furious semi-autobiographical dispatch from the middle of the AIDS crisis, about what it means to survive, really.
Oh, wow. Is this one of the first ones that’s directly addressed the AIDS crisis head on?
Actually we’ve done several others too. We did ‘Jerker’ by Robert Chesley, from 1986. It’s about phone sex, and these two men who never meet and don’t really know much about each other but every night they call each other to get each other off, and develop this sexual friendship that becomes something quite beautiful, until one of them passes. It’s a really tragic play, but kind of beautiful. 
Sounds like you’ve been busy! What do you hope your audience gets out of all this?
I hope that people can forge a connection with someone from the past that has been overlooked. When we set the project up, I was just like, “this is something I’d quite like to see, so, maybe someone else would as well.” And I think there’s a real appetite for it, which is really exciting to discover. Hopefully we can forge a connection between generations that I certainly feel deprived of, and I think many other queer people do too.
Totally. Well, good luck with the rehearsal process.
If you’re around for any of our events, I’ll be sure to get you a ticket.
I’d love that – break a leg!