In the candy-coated corporate world of Pride Month America, finding a sincere exploration of the queer experience can be difficult, but luckily, fledgling local company Broad Theatre has brought us just that in their latest, a heart-stirring exploration of queer longing at the turn of the 21st Century in Unbury Your Gays. On the page, it’s a simple story: two young teen girls are preparing for the school dance, where one of them will finally get their first kiss from the cutest boy in school. What blooms from this fertile garden is a subtle dance of subtext, repressed feelings, words-unsaid, and just a touch of necromancy.
So many of the teenagers we see in today’s media are so foreign from the actual experiences of most. For many of us, our teen years were strange, awkward periods where every setback was the worst thing that could ever happen, and every heartbreak was the saddest moment in the history of time. Unbury Your Gays respects those feelings, never invalidating how, though the tough moments in one teen’s life may not seem like much in the course of history, they can mean everything to that person. The feelings in Unbury Your Gays are powerful, even if they are often suppressed, and writer Maxine Dillon gives them room to breathe and grow, creating a rich, if sorrowful, landscape for her characters to roam.
Iliana Griffith-Suarez and Amara Johnson give two of the most honest teen performances I’ve seen in some time. What we forget from watching so many Riverdales and Gossip Girls is that most teens are just weird little gremlins running almost entirely on hormones, trying hard to be seen and appreciated for who they are, or who they could be. These two performers imbue their characters with a sense of becoming, with transition, never quite sure who they truly are from moment to moment, but knowing what they want to be, even if they can’t truly be that thing. It’s not an easy task, and could easily become cloying, but these performers bring such a rough charm to the work that it’s hard not to relate. Griffith-Suarez’s youthful spark is undeniable, and her large, emotive eyes convey so much during her time on stage as Sawyer. Johnson’s soulful take on Carolina truly breaks our hearts throughout, as her repressed feelings can be read in every slight askew glance, every unwieldy stance or gesture, a great bit of physical acting that only adds to the poignancy of her position.
There are few things I love more than when an otherwise realistic piece of storytelling will use a sly fantasy abstraction to help explore larger ideas, and the conceit used by Unbury Your Gays is a fascinating one. Early on in the piece, a Labyrinth-style fantasy film is mentioned involving a Necromancer Witch, and near the beginning of Act 2, in a bit of stunning stagecraft, we’re introduced to said Witch and her attempt to commune with the ghost of a would-be lover. For how much of the piece plays in subtext, it’s in these segments, told mostly in solemn, heartbreaking monologue by Johnson as the Witch in question, that the true meaning of the piece can be given more concrete shape.
One of the true wonders of Unbury Your Gays is how director Kairos Looney and their production team is able to transform the space so effectively. Utilizing a modular set design, and some well-timed smoke effects, they’re able to transform the tight black box of Hyde Park Theatre into a true-to-life early-2000s teen’s room, a Victorian home, and a high school gymnasium, without ever making it seems unbelievable. Indeed, the rooms in this feel as true to life as any I’ve seen, complete with Gilmore Girls DVDs and square TVs. The costume design is also cleverly modular, with the performers taking on some of the best quick-changes I’ve seen, jumping between full Victorian gowns and late-2000s loungewear in mere moments (one wonders if there’s literal witchcraft going on). This is to say nothing of the gorgeous, thoughtful lighting throughout, helping to transport us across space and time throughout the piece.
Unbury Your Gays is both a joy and a heartbreak to watch. It captures the sense of awkward, freewheeling whimsy of teen-hood, while also exploring the specific loneliness of queer desire. The honesty and nuance of these performances are really something to behold, all held up by a script and production team that make numerous smart choices to create a breathtaking world. It’s the perfect way to greet this year’s Pride Month, and a fine feather in the cap of one of Austin’s most promising up-and-coming companies.
Unbury Your Gays is playing through June 7th, 2025 at Hyde Park Theatre. For more information, and to purchase tickets, please visit Broadtheatre.org.
Photos courtesy of Erin Erickson.
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