Hole!, by American Sing-Song – aka ASS, aka New York-based performers Jake Brasch and Nadja Leonhard-Hooper – is one of those Fringe shows that you feel faintly grubby even describing the premise of but is, in fact, quite, quite magical.
Basically it’s a two-hander musical about Conor and Luke, two young closeted gay men from Nebraska living through The Great Sucking, a phenomenon predicted by Conor’s stern preacher father (God tipped him off) wherein anyone who doesn’t have something shoved up their bum will be sucked up into the sky and never seen again. The boys’ community has survived via a creative approach to going to the toilet and the job lot of wooden buttplugs Conor’s dad ordered for them just before it all kicked off. And now, in a post-apocalyptic America, the duo have been sent off to prove that they’re men by taking out the ‘Cincinnati Daddies’, a tribe of gay men living liberated lives that offend Conor’s religious father.
It obviously sounds insane, not to mention somewhat dirty. And yes, you probably shouldn’t take a young child (the age advice is 14-plus). But if it’s not what you’d call straight, it’s enchantingly straitlaced, as the deadpan creator-performers – dressed in caps, hoops in hair, poised at banks of instruments, for what amounts to a staged concert performance – really set about telling the story with maximum conviction. I mean this thing really has worldbuilding and you’d better believe that Brasch and Leonard-Hooper have thought through their premise: when Conor and Luke set off on their quest they bring along a lead toilet with straps; when we eventually reach the Daddies the community has developed a sex technique called ‘sky fucking’ that involves allowing yourself to start being sucked into the sky before plugging the gap in the nick of time. That sort of thing.
The earnest and inventive use of Foley adds another layer of sweetness, as does the essentially wholesome chemistry between Brasch and Leonard-Hooper. Yes, Conor and Luke are gay and yes they come to realise they have feelings for each other. Yes, there is a fair amount of innuendo and knowingness. And sky fucking. But it’s not just a musical about two dudes banging, but rather about two confused young men who have both lost their mothers, attempting to grow up and do the right thing in a confusing world. A confusing world in which you have to shove something up your bum or be sucked into space.
It’s great fun, has fun synth poppy narrative songs, and as much as anything it’s a real testament to human imagination. ASS have created an insanely detailed world. But also you could never do a literal staging of this thing. There is no sucking on stage, and nary a buttplug in sight: the world of Hole! exists in our heads, and in its own strange way it is a wonderful place.
