ABSTRACT
Peter Darney’s verbatim play, 5 Guys Chillin’ (2015), manipulates testimony from users of the social networking site Grindr and explores the relationship between drug-taking and casual sex on the contemporary gay ‘chemsex’ scene. Integrating interviews with the director, the chapter interrogates Darney’s formal innovations; disrupting the conventional imitations of authenticity seen in verbatim practice, Darney places testimony within a fourth-wall narrative conceit that constructs fictional place, time and characters, inviting the audience to invest in its dramatic premise: a frank, sexually explicit, drug-fuelled conversation between guests at a chill-out party. The chemsex scene is sustained by the social networking that operates in cyberspace; while announcements, invitations and interactions occur in this intangible realm, the ensuing bodily interactions happen in private, domestic spaces, undetectable to a wider, public sphere. The chapter examines 5 Guys with reference to the codes and rituals of gay countercultures, asking whether the material holds the potential to resonate beyond its immediate subject, context and audience.
