Theatre / Mayfest 2018
Review: Mayfest: Let’s Not Beat Each Other To Death
Swooping deftly between rage, resignation, irreverence, and joy, The Accidental Mechanics Group’s Let’s Not Beat Each Other To Death is a LGBTQ+ rebellion – and its chosen weapon is the medium of dance.
Its creator and only performer is Stewart Legere, a queer activist from Halifax, Nova Scotia, where acts of violence towards queer people dear to him led him to devise the show.
His solo performance rails against all forms of violence against queer people, but it begins as a personal and local journey: the murder of his friend Raymond and the stabbing of another friend which left him paralysed for life.
is needed now More than ever
Highlights include the ephemeral rendition of the song which, Legere later revealed, he sang at the vigil for Raymond on the pavement where he was beaten to death outside a gay club in Halifax six years ago. Another is a gloriously camp number which cheerfully lists all the ways you can die – “Cancer! Ebola! Slip and trip!” – before landing sadly and inevitably on the possibility that you’ll die from violence based on people who fear whom and how you love.
But the show’s scope soon expands, taking in gay men in Chechen concentration camps; lesbians beaten to death for daring to hold hands; violence against trans women in Venezuela; violence against trans women of colour everywhere. Incidents that “collect and collect and collect like water – like water – like water in a basin”.
It’s clear Legere’s anger is close to overflowing. It’s also clear that he uses the show as a form of catharsis for himself and the audience, in light of the fact that humanity does not seem able to comply with the show title’s simple suggestion. But we can fight, create safe spaces, and continue to forgive. So he sings, he remembers, he vents – and then, as the bar opens, a DJ appears as if from thin air and the show erupts into a joyous dance party that does away with the separation between audience and performer.
This multimedia mix of song, AV, and spoken word around love, hate, blame, and forgiveness is not to be missed.
Let’s Not Beat Each Other To Death finishes at The Loco Klub on Sat, May 19 as part of Mayfest 2018. For more info, visit mayfestbristol.co.uk/shows/lets-not-beat-each-other-to-death
Pic: Mel Hattie
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