The Saturday Paper: Queer art and the moral panic over Divine Playhouse
Michael Barnett OAM
With the shuttering of a new queer theatre in a former church, Sydney is suffering yet another moral panic.
Queer art and the moral panic over Divine Playhouse
That night I was a pig. The costume was originally Cupid in Opera Australia’s 2003 production of Orpheus in the Underworld, directed by Ignatius Jones and designed by Mark Thompson.
Being the Australian costume design nerd that I am, I proudly carry forth the spirit, legacy and sweat of the great artists who wore this costume before me. Granted, though, it had been heavily adapted, for obvious reasons, and as a result I did look somewhat demonic.
The event was the opening of Divine Playhouse on Kent Street in Sydney’s central business district. The venue was previously the Genesian Theatre and, some 94 years ago, a church. Thanks to Kat Dopper and Heaps Gay Events, the long-deconsecrated space was set to become Sydney’s most accessible and affordable arts endeavour.
I arrived as Frankenstein Pig with the intention of offering communion in the form of McDonald’s French fries. The work was my personal comment on belonging, religious exclusion, equality and the commodification of belief. It was a visual example of the outsider – pigs being an unclean body biblically – becoming the entity that nourishes.
Before I got inside I was greeted by religious protesters and their phrases of judgement – “Come out, you demons” and “Your day is coming” – while they banged on the doors of the venue.
It is worth noting again that this was not a religious space. It was deconsecrated in the 1930s, and recently sold to billionaire developers Revelop. It is set to become another lifeless high-rise in the sea of empty high-rise buildings that is Sydney.
Naturally, as any good performer does, I leant in to the moment.
“Body of Christ?” I captioned the photographs of the performance on social media, not realising my artistic licence would be weaponised by religious groups seeking to crucify the new queer venue, and Sydney’s artistic freedoms along with it.
I spent the night in celebration, smiles, songs, speeches, performances and community. Then I went home.
Sydney desperately wants to be regarded as a global city.
We build cultural precincts. We celebrate festivals. We commission public art. We market ourselves as ambitious, inclusive and internationally engaged.
Every few years, however, the same panic returns. It could be triggered by an artwork. A drag performer. A religious symbol. A queer body.
Suddenly the conversation is no longer about art but about what art should exist, who should be allowed to make it, who decides what is appropriate. Every time, Sydney reaches for the rule book.
I know this pattern because I’ve lived it.
Nine years ago, during the marriage equality campaign, my performance work, The Bleeding Bride, unexpectedly became part of Australia’s cultural conversation. The work explored belonging, freedom of speech and equal human rights amid the national debate over whether queer people should have the right to marry.
For a city so determined to project confidence, Sydney remains remarkably startled by contemporary culture and provocative self-expression. A culturally confident city expects difficult art. An insecure city expects decoration.
I performed the work only twice. Painted white like an alien, I gave the audience flowers plucked from my all-white bridal gown. Once plucked, each flower bled a long, colourful ribbon, creating a rainbow explosion as the work developed.
I got to experience this work both before parts of our community won equal rights and again afterwards, on the steps of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, in celebration.
At the time that celebration felt incomplete.
The work was a direct response to a personal experience weeks prior, when I was verbally abused at an inner-west petrol station by an overwhelmingly homophobic teenager, enraged simply by my existence and my audacity to dress colourfully in a public space, which seemingly offended his cultural and religious sensibilities.
I recorded the attack and posted it to social media, not realising it would make international headlines. The articles, private messages and comments led to death threats and police intervention, merely because I dared to exist visibly queer.
For a city so determined to project confidence, Sydney remains remarkably startled by contemporary culture and provocative self-expression. A culturally confident city expects difficult art. An insecure city expects decoration.
Handling awkward conversation and clashing opinion is not a new concept, and it is in fact precisely the beauty of a democratic society. Being unable to handle such things is not only immature; it’s uneducated.
I grew up in the church, and not as a passive participant.
I was an extremely competitive, gold-star enthusiast. I took pride in being a high achiever, participating in all church groups and singing every Sunday. I strived for first place in biblical studies – a position I retained throughout my Anglican schooling – and took on Christian leadership roles.
I did what I was told. I followed the rules. I gave my time in service as the public face of both my church and my school, only to one day have both communities refuse to engage with me and my art entirely because of how it looked.
No curiosity. No inquiry. No discussion.
I remember very clearly receiving a message on Instagram in my mid 20s from the wife of a notable leader at my church: “I get saddened every time I see where your interests lie. I will stop following you. Wishing you all happiness. But if you don’t find it down the road you’re headed... you know where it really is.”
It was at this point I experienced an epiphany one could only describe as a revelation: humans are the problem.
Humans are innately selfish, competitive and fearful. Humans have created the rules, the symbols, the systems. We are scared of death, terrified of difference and, arguably, most fearful of being embarrassed in front of each other by someone or something we cannot control.
Faith teaches love, but religious people demonstrate control.
No one took issue with me when my efforts, talents or artistic expression were controllable, but when my work provoked thought suddenly I was unwatchable?
I thanked the wife of the church leader and gently suggested that it was important to not “confuse obscurity with obscenity”.
Art has always been a tool for beauty, discovery, provocation and aspiration. Artists have always been the custodians who harness these tools.
In fact, much of the visual language of Christianity itself was manifested by artists commissioned to imagine the divine. Many of those artists lived lives outside the church’s approval: Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Simeon Solomon.
It would seem the church takes no issue profiting from the creativity of others, often or presumably queer, provided they control the narrative and reap the benefits, and we hide in the shadows.
The same could now be said of Sydney.
After only three performances, the Divine Playhouse was evicted by landlords Revelop. The venue operators were accused of “offensive trade”, part of an 1842 NSW law originally intended to control industrial waste and foul smells, not moral offence. The developers said protests were also a public safety issue, despite the protests being the actions of religious far-right social media influencers.
Both sides of the debate have online petitions. The religious protesters have gained roughly 8000 signatures to date, compared with Divine’s 20,000.
Both sides have staged public displays. Religious protesters gathered a handful of people to mumble prayers and hymns in the dark of night and Divine gathered more than 2000 joyful, colourful attendees to celebrate in the sunshine, raising their notably more in-tune voices to the heavens with pride.
I was one of those attendees. Dressed in all white as The Revelation Archangel, I handed out fresh apples from the tree of knowledge, accompanied by small Revelations of joy, love and hope. Arguably this was the same action performed on opening night and all those years ago on the steps of the gallery.
Different gift. Different costume. Same human. Same message.
Having lived a life on both sides of this debate, it will never cease to amaze me how one side seems determined to contradict its own doctrine by not engaging in inquisitive investigation or educated curiosity, despite having weekly meetings and a formal tax-free educational system known as church, while the other somehow manages to develop unconditional love between strangers, on crowded sweaty dance floors, listening to Kylie Minogue.
The queer community, like all communities, is extremely flawed. We don’t agree on everything and we often argue among ourselves. Yet there are a few things we understand universally: difference makes us more beautiful; empathy makes us stronger; silence is regression.
Sydney now has a choice to make. Not because that choice will help Heaps Gay Events retain their Kent Street lease or resurrect artistic work lost, but because Sydney is currently living a lie.
If we wish to be the progressive, multicultural, diverse and democratic global city we claim to be, we must behave like one when the cultural conversation gets compelling.
Brendan de la Hay is a performance artist, designer, creative director and visual artist.