A Northern Irish man behind new theatre company Dark Forest Theatre is hoping to create more diversity in the industry with a new hard-hitting play for LGBTQIA+ Awareness Week.
Nathan Martin has been working as a professional actor in Belfast for two years and felt frustrated with the lack of roles and representation for gay actors and performers across the country.
Speaking to Belfast Live, Nathan shared the inspiration behind his new play 'A Filthy Dark Rumour', the importance of highlighting the LGBTQIA+ community here and working with the rainbow project.
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Nathan said: "I have always been interested in acting, ever since I was a child I knew I wanted to be an actor. I was fascinated with old Hollywood and the art of the theatre, I felt such a calling towards the profession.
"Whilst living in China I joined a very amateur dramatic society in my second year, Powwow theatre. We wrote our own plays, directed them, acted in them, made the costumes, the set, the lighting was just lights on, lights off, no sound system.
"It was at my friend's bar and we would sell out every single time and I knew this was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life."
Nathan started Dark Forest Theatre after working in Northern Ireland noticing that he wasn't seeing castings for roles that he wanted and roles that he knew actors in Belfast were capable of doing.
"I wanted to create a theatre company that was open to all levels and all experiences, it didn’t matter if someone hadn’t been to drama school or didn’t have an agent or didn’t have a large list of credits - it's about giving actors a chance to show what they can do and not what a resume tells me they can do.
"When casting for A Filthy Dirty Rumour, I opened the casting to everyone and the amount of talent that I saw walk into that audition room was truly humbling. To see such a large amount of creativity and truth from these actors was a gift and showed me what the people of this country are capable of doing.
"We have amazing artists right at our fingertips and that all these people deserve their chance to show that and show their capabilities, including myself," he explained.
A Filthy Dirty Rumour tells the story of a young married couple in 1950s Belfast, who have a new female lodger in their home.
The wife’s sister oversees something that she misconstrues and suspects one of the women of being a lesbian and thus starts a chain of events which sees everyone’s life start to unravel and each character having to deal with their own sexual and moral identity.
Nathan continued: "Audiences I hope will see something in the LGBTQIA+ community that they didn’t expect and it will help people understand the serious mental health issues that people from the community experience. It is a serious play with some vital topics and themes.
"1 out of 8 LGBTQIA+ individuals attempt suicide and 1 out of 2 transgendered individuals contemplate suicide. That’s a huge statistic and it is something that seems to get brushed over or made to be irrelevant when the media discuss LGBTQIA+ topics.
"There seems to be a massive backlash against the community, trans rights are constantly being endangered, and people from the community are often vilified and degraded and this has serious repercussions for everyone in the community reading these articles and opinion pieces and feeling they are constantly belittled and degraded.
"People in the community are suffering and have real serious complex issues, whether its hate crimes, murder, suicide, denial, repression, fear, internalised homophobia and these issues should be brought into the light and into the conversation when discussing LGBTQIA+ people."
‘A Filthy Dirty Rumour’ will be performed from May 17-20 during LGBTQIA+ Awareness Week at The Sanctuary Theatre in Belfast and has been presented in partnership with The Rainbow Project.
He added: "The Rainbow project is vital in Northern Ireland, we have one of the highest suicide rates in Europe and are often at the top of that list. This is a country with complex trauma and having an organisation like the rainbow project to help guide the community and be an anchor for so many is incredibly important.
"The Rainbow Project offers life-saving counselling for so many individuals struggling and having them on board and having them be there to educate and to reassure anyone coming to see the play is really an honour.
"We as a community cannot be internalised, we need external support regardless of ideology, sexuality, beliefs, and the Rainbow Project can offer that support."
For more information and where to get tickets, see here
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