Confessions of a Mormon Boy

Feature by Amy Taylor | 26 Aug 2011

The first chapter of Steven Fales’ Mormon trilogy, Confessions of a Mormon Boy, a long-running off-Broadway hit has finally arrived in Edinburgh. Following his success at the New York International Festival and the Dublin Gay International Theatre Festival, this solo show presents a funny and bittersweet tale of a former Mormon boy and his struggle to create his own identity.

Beginning in Utah, the play follows Fales through childhood, adolescence, married life, his excommunication from the Mormon faith for being gay and finally his move to New York City. The play documents his many battles along the way, especially his problems with coming to terms with his sexuality.

Fales’ brutally honest accounts of his life in the Mormon church, his struggles with his sexuality, and just what he did with his life after being excommunicatied are heartbreaking, frustrating and uplifting. While the issues that surround his family life, his search for his identity, and his struggles not only with his faith, his church and his homosexuality, have the power to completely disarm an audience. It's the continuing confusion over what being gay in modern America means that really gives this show its edge. While miscommunications and confusion about the issue of homosexuality are rampant all over the world, Fales’ show isolates it to the Mormon faith, and reveals just what coming out cost him: the church he’d spent his life working in the name of.

High energy and even more emotive, Confessions of a Mormon Boy serves not as a warning against religion, but one of a caution of what can happen if you aren’t true to yourself and the people closest to you. Performed with a great flair for the dramatic and bravery and an unbelievable strength that enables him to produce his own life story, Confessions of a Mormon Boy is a journey of discovery that reminds that we shouldn’t let our past define us, and that it’s vital that we always look forward in life.

5 - 29th August @ Hill Street Theatre

http://www.mormonboy.com