Italian director and performer Alessia Siniscalchi's Garden Party – Truman Capote’s Black and White Celebration, at this year's Edinburgh Fringe, is an immersive theatrical experience evoking the spirit of a man with an overriding determination to champion the queer and challenge social hypocrisy. In this interview she explains why the spirit of Capote matters as much today as it did in the USA of the 1950s and 60s.
We need to create spaces where otherness isn’t just tolerated — it’s essential
Capote was a sharp critic of 60s New York society — who were his targets?
Capote’s targets were the very people who once celebrated him. He was embraced by the glamorous social elite — the “Swans,” the powerful, the wealthy — but he saw through the illusions. His writing, especially in Answered Prayers, exposed the vanity, cruelty, and emptiness beneath the surface. These were people addicted to their own image, desperate to maintain appearances while living in a web of betrayal and insecurity. With Garden Party, we dive into this world — seductive and dangerous — and explore what happens when someone dares tell the truth in a system built on lies.
How important was Capote for queer identity and visibility?
Capote was radical simply by existing. In the 1950s and 60s, being openly gay — let alone flamboyant, sharp-tongued, and unapologetically different — was an act of defiance. He never tried to fit into the norms of masculinity or silence his voice to make others comfortable. In a time when queerness was criminalised or hidden, Capote made it visible, glamorous, and confrontational. He didn’t lead a political movement, but his life was a form of cultural resistance. In Garden Party, we honour that — not just through his words, but by celebrating the queer joy, rage, and vulnerability he embodied.
Your show focuses on social hypocrisy — is that still relevant today?
More than ever. The forms of hypocrisy have changed, but the core remains. Today we talk about inclusivity, diversity, and progressiveness — but often it’s performative. Institutions use queer imagery in marketing while silencing real queer voices. Governments speak about freedom while passing laws that target trans and nonconforming people. Garden Party asks: what do we celebrate, and what do we silence? Who gets invited to the party — and who gets thrown out once they speak too loudly or shine too brightly? These questions are just as urgent now as they were in Capote’s time.
Are you afraid that society is becoming more repressive again?
Yes — and I think many artists, especially queer artists, feel this. We’re seeing new forms of censorship, often disguised as “protecting the public” or “preserving tradition.” There’s a growing backlash against queer and minorities, against migrants, and women against anyone who doesn’t fit neatly into established norms. There’s fear — fear of difference, fear of change. Capote fought, in his own way, for the celebration of difference, eccentricity, contradiction. With Garden Party, we’re trying to keep that spirit alive. We need to create spaces where otherness isn’t just tolerated — it’s essential.
How effective can the performing arts be in confronting social hypocrisy?
Theatre has always had the power to reveal — to show what society tries to hide. It doesn’t preach or explain; it makes people feel. That’s where transformation begins. In Garden Party, we’re not aiming for comfort — we want to seduce, disturb, delight, and provoke. Theatre can mirror society, but it can also distort it, break it open, make space for what’s been erased. Especially in a moment when truth feels increasingly fragile, live performance can still cut through the noise and speak to something visceral.
Are new models and approaches to performance needed to make that possible?
Definitely. Traditional theatre can feel distant, polite, and locked in hierarchy — artist vs audience, message vs receiver. But the world we’re living in calls for rupture. With Garden Party, we’re experimenting with form: it’s not just a play, it’s a happening, a queer ritual, a party with ghosts. The audience is invited inside — not just as spectators, but as witnesses, participants, even collaborators. We mix languages, disciplines, aesthetics. This is where theatre becomes alive again — when it breaks the rules and dares to be unpredictable.
Garden Party is not just about Capote — it’s about now. About power and exclusion,
love and rivalry, about beauty and danger, about the thrill of being different and the cost
of refusing to conform. It’s a celebration and a warning. Art has to be different. It asks
us: What are we willing to sacrifice for belonging? And what might we discover if we
stop trying to belong at all?
