Wednesday, 4th May - Sunday, 8th May (by Neil Watkins, Director: John O'Brien) Centre Stage Café at 8pm/5pm & 10pm. Tickets 12 euro

'A Cure For Homosexuality' is an "every-gay" play. A one man show with some songs and strip tease - at times comic - at others dark - and at others touching. "Alternative Miss Ireland" Watkins looks to history and its treatment of gay men and imagines what could happen if liberalisation of homosexuality were to take a step backwards. It is a nightmare vision of the future where the President of America does away with democracy, re-elects himself for a third term and sets about ridding the world once and for all of "faggots". An hilarious comedy …Gerry Colgan I.T.

About Neil Watkins

An ex-member of Dublin Youth Theatre, Neil Watkins trained at Drama Centre London (BA HONS). He founded Gentle Giant Theatre Company and for them has written and produced "The Ugly Penguin Scenarios" and "Love In A Time Of Affluence",(the latter won him a nomination for best new writer, The Steward Parker award 2004) both performed at The Crypt. Neil is an associate member of Calippo Picture and Theatre Company.

He has worked extensively in Irish theatre as an actor and stage hand over the last 10 years. He played Bosie Douglas to Brian Merriman's Oscar Wilde and Twink's Speranza in a Chelsea Affair at the Mint. Recently Neil performed "The Heidi Konnt Story" as part of The Alternative Miss Ireland at the Olympia March 13th. Neil also bore his ass on RTE in the
television series "Love is the Drug" in which he played a stripper.

He plays rugby with The Emerald Warriors gay rugby team and for them scored their first international try at the "Gay" rugby world cup last year in London.

"Watkins is established as a significant comic actor. He is a writer to be taken seriously. An hilarious comedy and ...A cause for celebration". Gerry Colgan, The Irish Times for "Love In A Time of Affluence."

Cast And Crew

WRITEN AND PERFORMED by NEIL WATKINS.
DIRECTED by JOHN O BRIEN
LIGHTING by EAMON FOX
DESIGNED by ORLA BASS
CHOREOGRAPHY by MUIRNE BLOOMER

PARTLY FUNDED by DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL.
Produced by Gentle Giant Theatre Company.

Show Reviews

"Site specific theatre premiered in the Centre Stage Café to good effect with a world premiere by Neil Watkins. The setting, use of space by Director John O'Brien and excellent lighting by Eamon Fox set the scene admirably for this innovative and unusual theatrical entertainment. It is constructed around a timely theme as it coincided with the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Europe. Structurally, it is a little long, even for a more than competent Watkins to sustain. The writing doesn't impart the essential information that would blend this piece into a play, rather than four almost distinct (sometimes autobiographical) monologues. If you didn't read the programme notes you don't find out until 50 minutes in that we are in 2010. You find out (very briefly) that Bush has been elected for a third term, but when ten years pass, you are never told how he is still in office. There is a brief reference to him colonising other countries, but does he get to Ireland? How has he taken over? Who is running the country now? How was all our legislation overturned? Most specifically in this brutal regime (that is an obvious source of pleasure to Watkins' character) how is his café still open? These inconsistencies make a challenging piece a bit more inaccessible. The play has no conclusion. In an acting tour de force for stamina and sheer concentration, Watkins is in his own genre – a solo performer who needs nothing else but a self intoxicated audience. He is a supremely confident and striking figure and his first act costume is fantasy inspiring. His Act 4 characterisation is a very funny impersonation, based closely on one of his working colleagues at Centre Stage perhaps? The characters thrive off their ability to find nothing but degradation in life. And that's about it. I found there was very little about homosexuality in this piece. Watkins stock in trade these days is to shock and sometimes just for the sake of it. He goes directly to the hardcore and treats all human emotion with a violent detachment. As with his previous work, it's all about the physical, the pain, the degradation and humiliation of (his interpretation) of human attachment. In this he completely confines sexuality to its most crude and inhuman forms. It does not even cross his mind that two men might in fact have the capacity to love each other – even extending beyond sex related relationships to the love between a father and son. It is a dark, barren and cruel outlook on life. It is great to see new Irish writing. It is great to see innovative productions. It is great to see versatility in characterisation being well interpreted. I came out of the venue a bit drained and with "a cure for" any desire to vote for Bush or those who might pursue his agenda in Ireland (and they do exist!), but it certainly wasn't a play about homosexuality. It was yet another piece from Watkins about sexual violence and violent sex. "- Gordon Farrell, Scene City - June 2005