Tim Luscombe
Pig
Photos credit: Tanja-Tiziana
Luc and Taylor meet online, Stevie and Joe get married in a Civil Partnership, and Pig and Knife are two rent boys exploring their death wish.
Pig delves into aspects of life that are frequently venal, unpleasant, disturbing and downright tragic. It’s about punishment, redemption, ownership and sacrifice, self-harm and death-wish, roleplay and the eroticism of violence and of HIV-Aids.
Pig is an exploration of love and identity. It has big ambitions. It ventures into unexplored theatrical territory, aiming to raise gay theatre out of its narrow world. It also hopes to reappraise attitudes toward the straight mainstream in general and the advent of civil partnerships by pitching romantic ideal and addictive hell so close together that they become tragically imperceptible. It asks the questions that everyone asks who has ever loved another.
As well as the original full production at Buddies In Bad Times (Toronto, 2013), Pig has had the following readings and workshops:
RADA, produced by Lloyd Trott, directed by Michael Longhurst, 2009
Oval House, hosted Ben Evans, directed by Hanna Berrigan, 2010
Factory Theatre Company, London, directed by Federay Holmes, 2011
Steppenwolf Garage Theatre, Chicago, directed by Derek Bertelsen, 2011
The Vaults, London, directed by Sarah Meadows, 2017
The language is hard hitting, grotesque and breathtakingly poetic and elegant all at the same time.
Formidable, elegant, unexpected, beautiful.
You will not come out of the play uninvolved. Tim Luscombe in Pig is Sarah Kane x 2. I thought it was stunning.
Lynn Slotkin, CUIT
The material is gay-specific – though it would resonate with any human being who can handle the explicit gay sexuality – and incessantly thoughtprovoking. Those arriving expecting shock value won’t be disappointed when they find themselves having to think – and flinch – on seeing their own dark hearts reflected.
Much has been made of the shocking and daring nature of Pig, but it should also be noted that it has moments that are excruciatingly funny. Playwright Tim Luscombe weaves words into a heightened poetry of scatological brilliance and the resulting laughs are those lacerating ones where one is forced to confront one’s own foibles.
There should also be no question that Pig is a highly literary piece, sumptuously written, dealing with subject matter that could be considered shocking, but is really just ahead of its time.
Drew Rowsome, My Gay Toronto