Sex, drugs and S&M: hit play depicts Prince George as grown up and gay
A play that imagines Prince George's future as a gay man has become a sudden off-Broadway hit.
With its title — Prince Faggot — and explicit sex scenes, the work may stir outrage, especially among royal insiders who have previously voiced disapproval over Netflix drama The Crown for being 'unfair' and 'untrue'.
But in New York City, where the play officially opened on Tuesday, it has generated rave reviews. The New York Times, which declared it a much-prized 'Critic's Pick', called it 'inflammatory, nose-thumbing, explicit to the point of pornography, wild and undisciplined' before ultimately concluding that it 'finds its way to splendour'.
And theatre lovers seem to agree: its run at Playwrights Horizons — the off-Broadway theatre that produced Tony Award-winning Stereophonic — is now almost entirely sold out and has already been extended.
Scenes within Prince Faggot include explicit sex, sadomasochism, nudity and drug-taking (patrons are required to deposit their cellphones in lockable pouches for the show's duration). The character of Prince George, who in real life is 11 years old, is now 19 in 2032.
Written by Jordan Tannahill, who once worked as a fetish sex worker, the story envisages Prince George (John McCrea) falling in love at Oxford with Dev (Mihir Kumar), a handsome British man of South Asian heritage. Their relationship is about to be exposed by the press, and although Prince William (K Todd Freeman) and Kate (Rachel Crowl) are resolutely supportive of their son being gay and out, they're not as positive about his future with Dev.
Dev expresses anger over the royal family's historic links to racism, calling himself a 'brown faggot' who will always be seen less favourably than a 'white gay prince'.
The play marries humour and drama. A harried palace PR (David Greenspan) tries to manage the news rollout, while Princess Charlotte (N'yomi Allure Stewart) makes snarky comments throughout. Prince Louis, meanwhile, is absent from the show.
The play starts with the cast — not in their royal-related character guises — pondering a screen projection of a viral photograph of George, looking fey at the age of three. Dev notes how George was hailed as a 'gay icon' when the photograph was first published. Other cast members say it's dangerous to speculate about young George in this way, especially when gay people are accused of being 'groomers'. Greenspan ends the debate with: 'Frankly, I think we've been doing a terrible job with the grooming. I mean look how many straights there are still.'
The two-hour performance is studded with monologues about race, trans identity, sexuality and strength. In imagining what would happen if George turns out to be gay, the play poses a central question that's more subtle than its raucous staging: what does it mean for an LGBT person, future monarch or not, to be absolutely themselves? The play ends not with Prince George, but instead a rousing and deeply personal speech by Stewart, a trans actress, redefining traditional notions of royalty and power.
With LGBT rights seeing pushback across the globe — this week, Hungarian police sought to ban Budapest's Pride event — Prince Faggot aims to shock but also to emphasise the importance of LGBT self-determination. Directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury, the F-word in its title is meant to reclaim the homophobic slur as a badge of pride.
The success of the play follows last year's BBC adaptation of Tannahill's second novel, The Listeners. Whether Prince Faggot will be staged as written in Britain, complete with pointed references to William and Prince Andrew's personal lives, remains to be seen. A spokesman for the play declined to say if there were any transatlantic plans, adding that nobody from the show was available for comment. 'They're wanting to let the play speak for itself for now,' the spokesman said.
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