The Politics of Queer Be-longing and Acts of Hope in Peter McMaster’s Solo Performance A Sea of Troubles and Split Britches’ “Zoomie” Last Gasp (WFH)

This article investigates two case studies of queer performers who counteract discomfort and terror with their acts of hope: Peter McMaster’s A Sea of Troubles (2019) and Split Britches’ Covidian performance Last Gasp (WFH) (2020). In the performers’ work, the politics of queer be-longing is tied to the performance of acts of hope which can function as a means to defy a society/a space that is limiting, hostile, or causing anxiety. This article conceptualizes the performance of acts of hope as ways to create forms of be-longing that position the queer individual firmly in – and, sometimes, “slightly above” (Dolan 5) – the (uncomfortable) present. Be-longing in this context is hyphenated to put an emphasis on the gap between the queer body and the surrounding space and to argue that that body can never merely be. Hope, therefore, is both a bodily and mental positioning that either looks to what is to come and draws its shape from that or, in looking back, reparatively constructs its space via retrospection to an elsewhere. In the two performances analysed, this positioning to be-long in the present constitutes itself via an engagement with one’s (male) theatrical ancestors (McMaster) and a retrotopian looking back on their career (Split Britches) to find words for the present.