Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens

Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens.
Insideout Productions in association with Upstage theatre Productions
27th September – 1st October
The Changeling House, Tron Theatre.

The shadow of AIDS is, somehow, less threatening than it once was. It shouldn’t be – even though instances have decreased in the west since the pandemic period of the 80s and 90s New York, the disease still claims lives with terrifying frequency. Like the disease itself “Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens” at the Tron this week, an 80s off-Broadway hit, has this sense of being placed in the past, despite this production’s valiant efforts to modernise and localise its content. In 2011 Russell and Hood’s “Musical Play” reminds us of the disease’s horrifying nature, and often relationship-strengthening consequences in an age where AIDS can feel distant and less pressing than it perhaps should.

“Elegies” moves with pace from person to person, tale to tale. The concept of a show where every character is dead from some form of contact with AIDS seems morbid, and it occasionally is, but it’s equally celebratory and jubilant in nature. More than this, however, it’s a series of monologues and uplifting musical numbers constructed to showcase beauty buried behind a debilitating disease. In this production, that beauty shines through not in the occasionally clichéd monologues but in the wall of harmonious sound created by this enormous cast. It’s more of a showcase for the incredible level of musical theatre talent out and working in the West of Scotland than anything. Full of recent graduates and a handful of familiar faces – “Elegies” is, perhaps surprisingly, an uplifting pleasure to behold.

These are musical theatre actors. Like it or not, there is almost always a division between those who act and can sing a bit, and those who can sing and act a bit too. The dilemma facing producers and directors of shows of Elegies’ nature (it’s billed as a “musical play”) is whether to cast a group of singing actors, or acting singers. The latter is, broadly speaking, the case in this production. Whilst that occasionally shows during the sometimes drawn-out monologues, littered with amateurish techniques for portraying anguish and sadness, it is more than made up for when these chanteurs and chanteuses belt their incredible numbers. They are all clearly more comfortable when they sing, and the audience cannot help but be carried along with them – whether that’s to uplifting euphoria or cathartic tragedy, it feels like we go between these extremes several times during the 2 hour show. Note must go to David Kristopher-Brown, Natalie Toyne and Gayle Telfer-Stevens, who sing with such skill, tenderness and power that one can’t help but be lead to wherever they’re going. The joy of Elegies is the ability of the incredible cast to explain their emotional patch in the quilt through song, tenderly, sensitively and utterly naturally. When faced with voices like these it’s impossible not to go along with them.