Practising "Love & Faith" when queering the early modern canon

Abstract

This project utilises a practice-as-research (PaR) methodology to examine adaptation processes throughout the rehearsal and performance of a new queer adaptation, titled Love & Faith (and something unholy). Love & Faith debuted at Qtopia, an LGBTIQ museum and performance space on Oxford Street in the heart of Darlinghurst, Sydney, in August 2024. Developed by an entirely LGBTIQ team, the production explored the central plots of Galatea by John Lyly and Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare. By placing the two texts into dialogue in a single production, Love & Faith established a queer temporality in performance, one that broke down spatial and temporal boundaries, locating resonances between the play-worlds, and between the texts and our own experiences as queer people living in Australia in 2024. Utilising my own reflections as the production's adapter and director, in addition to cast reflections, this project offers the unique perspectives of theatre makers to consider how the adaptation of early modern drama can provide queer artists with the opportunity to locate alternative temporalities that have a reparative function. It thus reframes adaptation from a mode of revision to a mode of repair, and considers how queer, creative embodiment can offer new insights into early modern plays. In doing so, it demonstrates not only how the adaptation of early modern drama can queer time - enabling LGBTIQ+ artists to access and imagine alternative pasts, presents and futures - but also identifies moments where this potential was realised in rehearsal and performance.