Farrier, Stephen (2013) It's About Time: Queer Utopias and Theatre Performance. In: A Critical Inquiry Into Queer Utopia. Critical Studies in Gender, Sexuality, and Culture . Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, pp. 47-68. ISBN 9781137308597

Abstract

This discussion wraps together issues of queer agency, temporality and utopia in order to look at how performance can offer moments of queer agency. Seeing theatre as a temporally queer space, the chapter makes the argument that through a recognition of the material body working to present a virtual character on stage, there perhaps lies an answer to the tension of queer agency. The stage, in its queerly fluid temporalities, plays plurally (it is both material and virtual) and yet can have material impacts in the world. This chapter takes the discussion of the plurality of time, character and materiality to read two performances: Blackout (Twilight of the Gods) by performer Dickie Beau, and The Front Room, a production by Outbox Theatre. Through the readings of two performances the chapter sketches out a strategy for resisting straight time in the theatre and through that resistance find glimmers of queer utopia.