ISSN 2002-3898 © Ken Nielsen and Nordic Theatre Studies DOI: https://doi.org/10.7146/nts.v25i1.110898 Published with support from Nordic Board for Periodicals in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOP-HS) Gone With the Plague: Negotiating Sexual Citizenship in Crisis Ken Nielsen ABSTRACT This article suggests that two historical performances by the Danish subcultural theatre group Buddha og Bag- bordsindianerne should be understood not simply as underground, amateur cabarets, but rather that they should be theorized as creating a critical temporality, as theorized by David Román. As such, they function to complicate the past and the present in rejecting a discourse of decency and embracing a queerer, more radical sense of citizenship. In other words, conceptualizing these performances as critical temporalities allows us not only to understand two particular theatrical performances of gay male identity and AIDS in Copenhagen in the late 1980s, but also to theorize more deeply embedded tensions between queer identities, temporality, and citizenship. Furthermore, by reading these performances and other performances like them as critical temporalities we reject the willful blindness of traditional theatre histories and make a more radical theatre history possible. Keywords: BIOGRAPHY Ken Nielsen is a Postdoctoral lecturer in the Princeton Writing Program, Princeton University, where he is currently teaching classes ranging from contemporary confession culture to tragedy. He holds a PhD in the- atre studies from The Graduate Center, City University of New York, with an emphasis on Gay and Lesbian Studies from the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS). In addition, he holds an MA in Theatre Research from the University of Copenhagen. Published works include Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, a continuum modern theatre guide, multiple articles, and book reviews. Currently, he is at work on a book project on, what he terms, “geographies of desire.” 58 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 25 1 Gone With the Plague: Negotiating Sexual Citizenship in Crisis KEN NIELSEN “A historical materialist cannot do without ship offered by these men is worth revisiting. This, the notion of a present which is not a tran- I believe, is the temporal moment that offers us a sition, but in which time stands still and has “unique experience with the past” to quote Benja- come to a stop. For this notion defines the min. In other words, I suggest that we, as theatre present in which he himself is writing his- historians, can use two long-gone amateur perfor- tory. Historicism gives the ‘eternal’ image mances, Det Scener Endianer and Intet Nyt Fra Pest- of the past; historical materialism supplies fronten,2 to illuminate the nexus of crisis, citizen- a unique experience with the past. The his- ship, and theatre. Furthermore, I propose that, in torical materialist leaves it to others to be this case, ideas of radical citizenship are tied to sexu- drained by the whore called “Once upon a ality and performance and that the group’s rejection time” in historicism’s bordello. He remains of decency as a viable option for gay liberation in in control of his powers, man enough to the middle of the Danish AIDS crisis allows us to blast open the continuum of history.” understand how citizenship, even in its negation, is theatrically produced. Benjamin’s thesis no. XVI in “Theses on the Philosophy of History”1 CRITICAL TEMPORALITIES The situation of this article on two performances Og syns de AIDS er for rå, så si’r hun ta’ å by a long-gone subcultural Danish theatre group is forstå, queer. Besides the ever-valuable project of historical Det nytter ikke å glemme å tro den vil gå reclamation of previously invisible histories, what relevance can these performances of sexual citizen- Pas på når de står til søs med et lokkende ship during a time of crisis possibly have? I suggest kys, that in a time in which the connection between ho- Her er mangen en skude gået under, mosexuality and national citizenship (consider Rus- Men uden lir bli’r man skør, når nu drifterne sia and its recent anti-homosexuality laws, the USA klør, and the seemingly never-ending debate regarding Selvom paven han siger det er sunder’. gay marriage as a threat to the nation, and Den- mark and debates surrounding alternative families) Til hver en hellig profet, der si’r han ve’ hva’ is increasingly tied to recurring discourses of decen- der’r sket, cy, the radical resistance to a normative definition of Der sir’ hun skråt op og tror kun på det hun citizenry and insistence on a radical sexual citizen- har set3 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 25 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 25 59 The second AIDS performance by Buddha og Freeman’s work, in making the historical possible, Bagbordsindianerne, a gay theatre group in the sub- it is necessary to pay attention “to gaps and losses cultural landscape of Copenhagen, opened in the that are both structural and visceral: the all-too-real small theatre Bøssehuset on a Saturday evening in limits presented by the stigmatization of AIDS, by November 1987. If the group’s previous production violence against lesbians and gays, by the unbeara- had been shocking, this production was even darker ble heaviness of the gender binary”.8 In doing so, we – as were the times. While the number of people who may just be able to outline a queerer sense of his- had died of AIDS-related illnesses by late 1987 was tory. In revisiting these performances, then, from a not clear, the public discourse surrounding gay men different place in time and geography – situated in a and AIDS was getting more suspicious and vicious.4 similar debate climate marked by fear and discrimi- Simultaneously, the gay subculture – and maybe in nation, but from a different temporal and geograph- particular the members of Bøssernes Befrielsesfront ical position – I suggest that we may better under- (the Gay Liberation Front) for whom being sexually stand not only the vagaries of temporality itself, but promiscuous was a natural part of a political liber- also the queer relationship between citizenship and ation – saw its numbers decimated. Interviewed by theatrical practices during a time of crisis. Eva Bøggild, Wanda Liszt says: “It was in 1982 that I suggest that we look at these two performances the first vague information arrived. First as a joke: as simultaneously in and out of time: they are his- there is a new disease that only affects homosexuals, torical in that they disappeared as all performance later as a rumour one knew had a grain of truth, but does, yet contemporary in the way in which their nobody knew what to do about it. AIDS appeared negotiations of radical sexuality as part of an inclu- at a point in time when we had won, so to speak. sive identity remains queerly dangerous. In mean- Now was the time to have fun. We had removed ingful ways, of course, one could argue that they many of the oppressive mechanisms. Gay men were cannot be understood outside the context of their visible in the world, and it was our explicit goal to immediate productions as reactions to the AIDS make being gay visible. Now we were to enjoy the crisis in Denmark and its consequences in terms fruits of our labour. And then this disgusting disease of emotions such as loss, fear, and rage. However, is thrown in your face. Headlines in Ekstra Bladet [a I propose that they can also be understood as being Danish tabloid]: gay cancer. Stuff like that”.5 out of time, that their amateurish nature and their Speaking in hindsight here, removed from the emotional immediacy as a reaction to a body politic critical days of the immediate reactions to AIDS, in crisis – literally and metaphorically – allow us to one notices the melancholy and sense of loss in view them as queer, theatrical ghostings of ongo- Liszt’s formulation of a hard-earned victory turned ing debates concerning the potential of queer cit- into something else. Recent queer scholarship has izenship. The question then remains, how exactly become increasingly interested in the question of the theatrical nature of these representations helps temporality – the connection between time and his- us understand larger issues pertaining to the crux tory. Elizabeth Freeman, for example, in her work of the relationship between theatre and democracy Time Binds suggests that “the dialectic between time past and present? How can we understand the in- and history has been characteristic of not only Eu- and-out-of-time importance of the subcultural uti- ro-American modernity but also of queer theory, lization of theatre to negotiate a gay male identity or at least one particular caricature of queer theo- in crisis? ry”.6 This caricature, then, Freeman contends “has A possible answer to this question can be found not always attended to the vagaries of temporality, in American theatre scholar David Román’s work. as practiced and as embodied, that make new con- In Performance in America: Contemporary U.S. ceptions of the historical possible”.7 Wanting to pay Culture and the Performing Arts, Román asks the attention to such ‘vagaries,’ Freeman encourages us question, “What might be gained by placing per- to strive to make histories possible, or, maybe rather, formance at the center of current national inquiries to imagine history differently. If we are to follow and debates?”9 For Román, the performing arts play 60 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 25 Nordic Theatre Studies vol. 25 a vital role in negotiating cultural anxieties, in par- THE HISTORICAL FRONT ticular “around ideologies of race, citizenship,