To Be Straight with You is a poetic but unflinching exploration of tolerance, intolerance, culture, religion and homo/sexuality. The performance is based more than 80 interviews with men and women living in the U.K.
Those interviewed included people who are both religious and gay and people who have given up one thing for the other. Members of the clergy, human rights organizations and people opposed to homosexuality because of their religion, and passers-by were asked how they felt about issues like gay marriage and the relationship between religion and sexuality.
Many of the interviewees, particularly from minority groups with strong religious ties, requested that their identities remained hidden, fearful of the consequences should their families and communities discover their sexuality.
Lloyd Newson, DV8’s artistic director, searched intensively for six months for a form with which he could present the subject on stage. The result is a mix of dance, text, film and animation, based on hundreds of hours of interview material. Every word in the performance comes directly from the interviews.
DV8’s new production gives a frightening picture of reality and gives rise to the question of how society can unite religious beliefs with the human rights that apply to everyone regardless of sexuality, gender and cultural background.
Cult company DV8 Physical Theatre and Lloyd Newson have been touring the globe for almost 20 years with their performances and have also produced award winning films for TV, all of which challenge the understanding of how dance can or should be. The company performed The Happiest Days of Your Life at Dansens Hus in 1999.
