This playful piece of queer metatheatre slowly reveals a fierce political heart
“You are about to see the new solo show by Gregory Nussen, entitled: QFWFQ,” reads the poster for this unpronounceable and unforgettable piece currently running at Edinburgh’s Summerhall. The play is a genre-bending, fourth-wall-breaking loose adaptation of the 1979 novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. Written by postmodernist Italo Calvino, the book addresses (in second person) the story of the reader trying to read a book with the exact same title. It never really starts or ends, yet narratives begin to emerge and break off within it. Likewise, Nussen’s piece begins with the performer addressing the audience, first in a comical monologue about our surroundings. It seems like familiar territory, but then things start to glitch: pages from the books that cover the table onstage are suddenly everywhere, projections and sound cues trip on the script. Nussen’s absorbing performance draws us into a twisty world of words that asks big questions about faith, reality and identity.
While “male” and “female” structures of plot have been explored before, Nussen’s work excitingly introduces an idea of what non-binary theatre/literature might look like. There is something inherently meta about both Jewish and queer understandings of the world: both communities, especially when overlapped in one person, necessitate a kind of constant interrogation of the monoculture from which they are so often excluded. Nussen’s anecdotal stories, from coming out to their friend at an art gallery, to criticising the ideological structure of a group trip to Israel they attended as a teenager, are incredibly moving on their own, but bolstered further by the show’s unique format.
If anything, QFWFQ could afford to get trickier faster – its stiltedly affable introduction goes on a beat too long – and a little more context could be provided to those audience members who are not already familiar with the source material (I learned afterwards that the title comes from the novel’s narrator). But once it unfolds, QFWFQ’s experiment is thrilling, instilling an urge for a deeper understanding of the book and, in turn, Nussen’s career.
By Maia Kahn
Photo by Sonya Katarina
QFWFQ runs until Monday 31 August. 11.40am. £15, £12.50 concs. Former Gents Locker Room @ Summerhall, EH9 1PL. edfringe.com/tickets/whats-on/qfwfq