A white man saying he has many black friends is a poor defence against racism. The proximity to others of a different skin colour does not create an automatic osmosis of lived experience.
Aims to be a sitcom but has a drawn-out “sit” and only unsubtle “com”
We may, therefore, question a play with all black characters if the playwright is white.
The same lack of lived experience doesn’t appear to be a problem when it comes to sexuality. At least, not according to the Pulitzer Prize judges who awarded Katori Hall the 2021 Drama Prize for The Hot Wing King, a play that centres around four gay black men, now at the National Theatre’s Dorfman.
Hall, best known for writing Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, is a black, heterosexual woman. But she has a gay brother. So that’s all right then.
Even if brother and sister are borderline incest-close, Hall’s understanding of gay men can only be narrow, based on hearsay. The characters she has written with positive prejudice are not offensive, but provide little more than modern-day stereotypes.
They lack depth in a production that aims to be a sitcom but has a drawn-out “sit” and only unsubtle “com.”
The Main Gays
The action follows four friends as they prepare for the next day’s Hot Wings cooking competition. Being awarded the title of The Hot Wing King is the goal of Cordell (Kadiff Kirwan). Having entered five times but never won, for him the potential title now represents purpose - something he’s been lacking since moving in with boyfriend Dwayne (Simon-Anthony Rhoden), and losing his wife, children, and job in the process.
Cordell is ‘tough muscled gay’. His confidence comes across as brash, but clearly masks insecurities. (Yawn!) Boyfriend Dwayne is ‘straight-acting gay.’ (Yawn, yawn!) With an air of self-importance and success defined by his job as a hotel manager, he is a straight man, living a straight life, in all but sexuality.
The strength of their relationship is illustrated through exposition (a “this is how they met” story), repetition (“but we’re partners”) and ill-placed references to fucking.
They are both clearly the creations of a writer who believes that the only difference between gay men and straight men is a preference of genitalia.
The Supporting Gays
Helping the *couple* is ‘daddy gay’ Big Charles (Jason Barnett). He is a long-standing friend of the couple or, as it turns out, the man who has been their barber for five years. The dialogue implies that Charles' weight or height may have led to the 'Big' moniker, but neither is unusual in Barnett, who stumbles through lines as though it isn’t merely prop beer being drunk onstage.
Players of Gay Bingo will likely already have guessed the final gay trope of this foursome; Isom (Olisa Odele) is ‘camp bitchy gay.’ More of a hindrance than a help, moving in lunges and speaking in innuendos, Isom is the blissfully self-unaware gay we often see in plays: one moment, stretching his butt cheeks wide as he lusts over a straight guy, the next bemoaning the fact that men only want him for sex.
Even the hot wings that they make live in front of us fail to connect these four: Isom has only been involved for a year, in which time he has occasionally slept with Big Charles. Dwayne is just there because he’s fucking Cordell.
The only thing that brings these faux gays together is the conceit of the playwright.
Dwayne says he must return to work (cue “it’s me or the job” rows with Cordell) but is actually picking up troubled nephew EJ (Kaireece Denton). EJ's father, TJ (Dwane Walcott) appears, to pour straight oil on the bubbly gay water. Really, nobody cares.
The Approach
The play is performed with a meta approach to sitcom, but its scene changes and character entrances are punctuated with musical stings and its plot points are foreshadowed with a farce-like lack of subtlety. Describing the searing heat of a chilli, then hiding it out of the way to avoid its accidental usage, is almost patronising.
It wouldn’t be out of place to hear canned laughter. As if sensing this, the audience fills the gap, reacting to arguments with audibly exaggerated gasping and greeting jokes not just with laughter, but with waving hands as its members guffaw loudly.
The already overlong script pauses for an impromptu rendition by the cast of Luther Vandross’ Never Too Much. The full song. With dance moves. It’s performed so well that I saw at least two audience members singing along. But really, what is the point?
The performance looks sleek but its unnecessarily large stage literally thrusts out into the audience. Forcing the removal of the first five rows of the stalls, the scale feels too grand and shouty for the intimacy required from a single set play.
The Concerning Verdict
It may not seem to merit a Pulitzer Prize, but on face value, The Hot Wing King is harmless, if unremarkable, fun. This is summer season and sometimes we want to grab something from the BBQ rather than sit down to a satisfying meal. It fills a culture gap, then with one loud belch, it’s out of your system.
But the play's portrayal of gay men disturbs me.
We have moved on from the time when a play's gay character would lead to the raised eyebrows of theatregoers. But visibility is not the end of the story.
In our acceptance of gay representation, we have come to assume that all representation is positive. The Hot Wing King is a return to cliché – albeit a warm, cuddly, positive cliché – that justifies the belief many hold as comfort.
It suggests there are just two kinds of gay men: the sexualised 'others', neutered as figures of fun, and the non-sexualised 'us', different only by their unspoken bedroom habits.
These are the beliefs of a heterosexual woman. Beliefs extolled by the judges of a prize.
For me, that doesn’t seem like progress. It doesn’t seem like progress at all.
