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Four Queens In Hawaiian Shirts.
When he's not busy working his day job in a Melbourne call centre,
Steven Dawson is either working on his next production for Outcast
Theatre Company, or off touring the country. I express my surprise
that he gets the time off from work to fit in his interests...
"perhaps he doesn't care?"
"I gave up caring for that the first day I walked in the door," he quips.
Well, that explains how it is Dawson finds the time to write his plays - he's working on his 29th at the moment, concurrently putting together the show which he is bringing over to Adelaide for this year's Feast Festival, 'Four Queens In Hawaiian Shirts'.
As the title suggests, this is a piece of gay theatre with a little of something for everybody. Dawson knows where his bread is buttered... "It is overtly gay, but people have to be entertained, and I think we do that in spades. But then, I get to work in some serious subtext and ideas into the script, along with the humour.
"As a play '4 Queens In Hawaiian Shirts' explores some universal themes - about falling in love and getting over it. One of the characters in the play has just had a love affair ended, so his friends take him to a Queensland resort to help get him over it.
"The comedy is very physical in this play, very physical," Dawson insists. "And there's the usual Steve Dawson one liners; in fact they're absolutely rampant." The four actors: Matthew Osborn, Adrian Corbett, Justin Hosking and Nathan Butler get a thorough workout - in a similar vein to shows such as 'Bouncers' they get to play the four lead roles, and supplement them with appearances as flight attendants, an all girl netball team, and old Jewish couple on the plane as the tale unfolds. There's no ret for the wicked in such a performance, which Dawson feels is one of crossover appeal; pointing out the show ha already run in Melbourne and that he's planning on taking it to Scotland for the Edinburgh Fringe in the future. "Since I was an actor and then trained at NIDA I like to say that I have an actors ears and a writers visual appreciation," he laughs.
Clearly, his humour has found a willing audience, who will find in '4 Queens In Hawaiian Shirts' that the devil is in the detail... our four protagonists are in the air on their way to their holiday destination when they discover that the welcoming beach resort has had a change of management - and of clientele. Will they cope?
"This will be our fourth year running, coming over to the Feast Festival," he says, delighted to get the chance to register his delight. "I must say, we like to have a new show ready to go each time we head over to Adelaide, because our audience is building up time after time, and they just know they're going to have a great evening."
Alex Wheaton
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'4 Queens In Hawaiian Shirts' plays from Tues 22 Nov at the Star Theatre on Sir Donald Bradman Drive as part of the Feast Festival.
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