After the hit play First Time and smash TV show It’s a Sin, Nathaniel J Hall’s new play Toxic will take you on the wildest night out of your life.
You walk in and Britney Spears’s ‘Toxic’ is playing from the speakers. The vibrations reach your seat and you are immediately taken back to any loud party—joyful or not—that you have ever been to.
This familiarity and intimacy is a constant thread throughout Hall’s bond, raw new play Toxic and it becomes immediately obvious as the two characters walk on stage and introduce themselves: Hall as the playwright and Enright as the performer. They tell us that they’re going to share a story, that it might be their story but it might also be ours. They warn us what to and what not to expect before throwing us into a loud, queer warehouse party in 2017 Manchester where a beautiful, messy love story is about to blossom…with all the consequences that entails.
As we are introduced to the two characters; they are both overwhelmed with their own personal struggles. He is HIV+ and drowning in shame, and they are one microaggression away from a full-on meltdown.
Throughout the hour and a half that follows, we get to know the characters intimately, their stories, family dynamics, what they like, and what they are scared of. They find comfort in each other’s arms, they fight, and they have sex. They break apart and pull each other back together in a loop which, in the play’s own words, becomes both “intoxicating” and “toxic”, leading to the outcome we’ve been told from the start: they will fall in love and they will f**k it up.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Hall earlier this month about the developmental process that led to the creation of Toxic. Unlike their previous play First Time, this project is semi-autobiographical and it merges the experience of multiple members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Given this, I was particularly excited to see Enright’s performance and how their experiences of blackness and dual heritage background would inform and enrich the narrative.
The juxtaposition with Hall’s white cis-male perspective significantly broadened the scope and the depth of the themes the play is tackling: we got to see the characters’ individual struggles with HIV stigma and racism in addition to their collective issues with identity and shame surrounding their queerness.
Enright is an instinctual, powerful performer and Hall’s writing sits at the perfect balance of poetic and truthful. At no point did I feel like one of the character’s narratives was more important than the other, they both occupied and dominated the stage unapologetically.
The multiplicity of queer voices that helped create and shape Toxic is apparent not only in the writing but in the staging of the performance itself. In this show, so many different creatives come together to create a specific environment and setting which elevates the storytelling as a whole. The music, composed by SHAR (Charlotte Barber) keeps you hooked to the characters’ journey and melds seamlessly with the Movement Direction by Plaster Cast Theatre. This choreography allows the performers’ bodies to merge and separate in harmonious synchrony, illustrating how the two characters are united by their queerness yet divided by their individual struggles.
Another standout element for me was the projection and audiovisual design by ./ ./ dede (Dee Dixon). Recreating the effects of various drugs and party atmospheres, it seemed to physically transform the characters’ bodies, making them appear lighter as the slanted stage transported them through distinct movement sequences.
The play is bold and unafraid to confront stereotypes face-on, finding power in humour, queer joy and laughter, as well as being deeply educational on the psychological effects of an HIV diagnosis today and concepts, such as U=U, PrEP/PEP and the different charities and organisations to look to for support: George House Trust, Our Room (formerly The Men’s Room), We Are Survivors and the LGBT Foundation.
As the unnamed characters’ love story ends, the lights come back on and the playwright and performer reemerge.
“Are there any LGBTQIA+ people in the room tonight?” they ask. A sea of hands rise in the air. Nathaniel and Josh look out at the crowd. Perhaps the unnamed characters they portrayed are truly a part of all of us; we really do know them and can feel their anger, hope, fear, and joy.
If you want to go on a wild night out, laugh, cry, and listen to lots of Britney Spears, you cannot miss this trailblazing, honest, beautiful piece of theatre.
Toxic is a Dibby Theatre production, now playing at HOME Theatre from the 18 – 28 October as part of HOME’s Theatre 2 Autumn 2023 Season, and will head out on a UK tour next year!
