With the ‘debate’ over a proposed religious discrimination bill before the federal parliament again, the arguments put forward by religious leaders once more appear less focused on enshrining the right to practice faith freely (fair) and more on the freedom to persecute LGBTQIA+ people and other groups also deemed ‘sinners’.
For those of the Pentecostal faith, including Hillsong-attending former Prime Minister Scott Morrison – singled out by audience members in the sassy call and response opening sequence of Homo Pentecostus (the latest from Considerable Sexual License creator Joel Bray) that’s a very long sinners list.
This list is mined for comedy gold in a hilarious sight gag corralled by equally charismatic co-star Peter Paltos. Wheeling out the sort of overhead projector that would be very familiar to anyone who went to high school in the ’80s or ’90s, he flicks out a comically long acetate sheet of tick boxes, proceeding to check off the various levels of mortal sins with a red sharpie. Perplexingly, if you enjoy yoga or Star Wars, you’re damned and should turn away from the downward dog Dark Side.
All the while, Paltos’ voice, narrating these increasingly ludicrous no-nos, begins to distort demonically. As does his hand, straying from absent-minded dick doodles towards violent scratches in which Bray, caught in the projector’s hellfire glare on the vertical blinds lining the rear of the stage, gesticulates as if possessed, then baptised in a very suggestive eruption of hand sanitiser.
Wearing his heart on his tight T-shirt sleeves, Bray asked Paltos to work with him on this intensely personal show (alongside co-director Emma Valente), apparently unaware that his co-star temporarily joined the Pentecostal church, despite being brought up in an Orthodox home with Armenian, Egyptian and Greek heritage. Paltos assumed he was chosen for this lived experience, but Bray says it’s just because he’s a great actor and a bit cute, as the pair revel in the show’s relaxed, fourth-wall-breaking banter. A coincidence? Bray thinks so, but Paltos, more open to the possibility of divine inspiration, isn’t so sure. He suspects the birds that memorably erupted into song once and once only during rehearsals knew more than they were letting on.
Homo Pentecostus is a deliciously rich fusion of confessional theatre and ecstatic dance, where choreographer and dancer Bray reckons with religion thrusting more shame onto young queer minds already struggling with their identity. It’s one very much condemned by his mother’s Pentecostal church, growing up in the regional NSW city of Orange. His Wiradjuri father’s family were Seventh Day Baptists, leaving him caught between a rock and a hard place. This spurs a powerful exploration about how colonial Christianity actively erased First Nations spirituality, their connection to Country and language. Bray feels that disconnection robbed him of something profound, something he’s had to rebuild bit by bit.
Brimming with abundantly energetic empathy, Homo Pentecostus is no crucifixion. The pair push backwards and forwards on the limits of their belief, thanking their families for their love no matter how complicated things got, with the spectre of faith healing – aka conversion therapy – exorcised.
Bray’s work regularly unpicks patriarchal structures of control in surprisingly joyous ways, for all the heaviness in which they deal. Homo Pentecostus is a profound and profoundly funny experience, where the stackable plastic chairs of Kate Davis’ pared-back set, standing in for church pews minus Hillsong’s built-in card readers, transmogrify into a funeral pyre lit by disco’s dry ice as unholy smoke. Sunbeams pierce deep waters, thanks to lighting designer Katie Sfetkidis’ delicate yet dynamic work, with blasts of Marco Cher-Gibard’s pulsing electro score propelling us from beats discovered at the first blush of emerging sexuality to ancient ceremonial grounds.
It all makes sense by dint of Bray’s guiding hand, bearing his soul and more. His sinewy moves transport us from damnation to rapture with the aid of Paltos’ shared generosity. Ignore the obnoxiously loud binaries of political argy-bargy, and what do we hear? Is it love? Forgiveness? Faith?? Perhaps only the birds know.
Homo Pentecostus is at the Malthouse's Beckett Theatre until May 25 and tickets are available here.