A deeply affecting and sensitively realised account of this important text about sexuality.

Gasworks Arts Park, Melbourne
January 22, 2016

Of the range of human emotions a person might leave a theatre feeling, ashamed is possibly one of the rarest. Yet this was the unshakable mental state I was left with following Lab Kelpie productions’ arresting staging of British playwright Douglas Rintoul’s Elegy.

This one-act solo, devised in 2011, tells the story of a gay man in Iraq, as the disintegration of his country following the invasion of foreign troops has allowed militant elements to transform his home from a place of safety to one of horrifying violence and imminent death. He relates his first tentative steps exploring his sexuality, and falling in love for the first time, but this gentle nostalgia is short lived. As his friends – other gay men – are tortured, mutilated and brutally murdered, he attempts to flee to the safety of the west, only to be met with apathy and hostility towards refugees.

There is a muted sophistication to this exceptionally powerful text, and this production has been carefully considered to create a versatile and...