Review: Much to Do With the Law, but More to Do With Love at Gasworks

Review by Greg Gorton

Much to Do With the Law, but More to Do With Love has Dr Danish Sheikh provide a story of a legal team’s effort to change Indian law, the horrifying story of the woman who provided a key affidavit, and the story of a young gay law student who wanted to change the world. It’s a show about the importance of language, the need for all to have the right to love, and Taylor Swift. It’s a show about Taylor Swift.

Sheikh describes his performance at the outset as a “lecture performance”. It’s a lecture, but a fictional one, a fictional lecture about things that really happened, containing real quotes from real people, but yes, fictional. This unique genre of work is performed on the large blank stage of the Gasworks black box theatre, with little more than a chair and small lectern used as props. The show also relies heavily, and uses well, a projected presentation, including transcripts, images and, again, Taylor Swift. This projected presentation becomes the source of the humour in the show, and despite the grim subject matter, there are sincere moments of joy and laughter.

Using the concept of the monomyth, the Lecturer (the fictional version of Sheikh) tells the story of how they, as a young gay Indian man, came to care about a specific section of the Indian Penal Code called Section 377. It was the section that was used to criminalise queer people’s very existence. The boy joined the legal team attempting to change this law, and came to know the story of Kokila, a trans woman, whose horrific experience of sexual violence became a key story in the movement at the time. After the team fails their challenge to change the law, the disenfranchised Lecturer wrote a play about Kokila (something the real Sheikh did as well). The play was picked up by a much larger company, and the man had to come to realise what that does to your understanding of the original material.

Finally, the lecturer comes to terms with the changing nature of language and law, the importance of remembering whose story is being told, and that Taylor Swift wrote good music, but even she isn’t perfect.

There are a lot of positive things to experience about this production, especially as an educational tool. However, I unfortunately find myself unconvinced about its merits as a piece of entertainment.

Practically, the performance I experienced presented as one that had been under rehearsed, and filled with basic technical flaws. Sheikh would move about his bare stage in what appeared to me as an arbitrary manner. While Shiekh is a charming and engaging speaker and knew what he wanted to say, the lack of a formal script made stage managing the presentation a nightmare. The use of the unnecessary microphone also led to much audio interference that was quite frustrating. The repeated thought I had during the night was “why aren’t we in a lecture theatre?” Perhaps that is due to audience psychology, as I know from experience that Melbourne audiences are picky about their venues. Regardless, the space was used very poorly. Some attempt was made to ameliorate this with lighting design, but said design often led to lighting that was poor rather than interesting.

In terms of telling the story, I also struggled. I love genre-bending stuff, and the idea of the “fictional version of myself” is not unfamiliar to me, but I found myself here feeling quite confused about how I was meant to take something as the audience. Learning that the lecturer is unreliable works wonderfully, but I came to the end of the show still unsure about what the creator, the real Dr Sheikh, wanted me to think about the language of the law.

In 2018, the Indian Supreme Court finally changed the interpretation of Section 377, finding its use unconstitutional. However, as far as I could tell, it has not been completely repealed in parliament. Likewise, we should remember that in 2017, close to five million Australians actively voted against marriage equality. As a piece of art sharing the reality faced around the world, and a reminder that our fight for rights is ongoing, Much to Do With the Law, but More to Do With Love is important. Also, it has Taylor Swift.

Image Supplied