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| Matthew McGloin stars in a musical version of ‘The Blue Lagoon,’ one of the many out-there, experimental and inviting options at this year’s Capital Fringe Festival. (Photo by Jonathan Padget) |
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HOME > ENTERTAINMENT > FEATURE
By: PATRICK FOLLIARD COMMENTS
 
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than honest about his sexuality.”
Initially a working title, “Faggot” caught on and eventually became the official name of Scott’s show.
“The word is definitely loaded. A lot of people compare it to [the N-word],” says the playwright. “I’m interested in where the word is right now. Who owns it, and who is allowed to use it. When is it a slur? How it impacts different individuals in different ways. These are the kind of questions I want the audience members to leave the theater asking themselves.” (“Faggot” will show at the Goethe-Institut, 812 7th St., NW, July 21-29.)
LAST JULY, ONE OF gay playwright Scot Walker’s works was produced in Northern Virginia. The turnout was less than stellar: Everyone, according to Walker, was in D.C. filling seats at the Fringe Festival productions. Determined not to repeat his mistake, he applied early (Halloween 2006) to secure a spot in the festival for his latest dramatic work: “The Lesbian and the Flying Pig.”
Set 20 years in the future when born-again Christians control the U.S. government, Walker’s one-act work focuses on Peg Middleton (Patricia Penn), a troubled young lesbian, and her partner Maggie Jerome (Carrie Mercadante). As CEO of Honor Thy Children Foundation, a government organization that takes children away from gay parents and places them in straight Christian homes, Peg’s authentic identity is at odds with her professional veneer. Adding to her stress is an inability to remember any part of her 12th year, the year when she was raped, and the prying investigations of William Albright (Michael Sainte-Andress), a closeted agent from Homeland Security. Angela Prater directs the show.
Inspired by a youth and early adulthood entrenched in fundamentalist Christian doctrine and, more recently, a Falls Church Episcopalian church’s controversial decision to join the fold of rabidly anti-gay African Archbishop Peter Akinola, Walker aims to create a loathsome world in which Christians come together for a little potluck dinner and “to stone fags for Jesus.”
Replete with out-there imagery, terror and (surprisingly) laughs, “The Lesbian and the Flying Pig,” is a cautionary tale tailored to our times.
“Also, it’s about personal journeys — something many gay people know a lot about,” says Walker, 63, who does a lot of his writing on the sandy banks of the stream that runs behind his and his partner’s home in Falls Church. (“The Lesbian and the Flying Pig” plays the Flashpoint-Mead Theatre Lab, 916 G St., NW, July 20-28.)
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