Prince Faggot’s title is more than an eye-catching oxymoron. It’s more, even, than a signal that the play, which is now running off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizons in a co-production with Soho Rep, is by and for queer folks. In actuality, the title is a question: can a prince be a faggot? Or, parsed more broadly, can queerness — filthy, controversial, truly countercultural queerness — ever really co-exist with respectability politics?
The new play from Jordan Tannahill (who’s made headlines lately for writing and directing upcoming medieval zombie movie Rapture, which will star Kit Connor and Manu Ríos) reckons with the world’s fascination with British royalty. Specifically, it riffs on a very real possibility: that the currently 11-year-old Prince George of Wales could become the first ever openly queer person in line for the British monarchy. It follows George from his college years into his middle age, exploring how royalty might mix with the unique social and romantic dynamics of gay men’s culture. The thought experiment stems from that viral 2017 photo of George “gazing with limpid amazement at an ascending helicopter,” as the play puts it, which had people across the internet dubbing the then-3-year-old a gay icon in the making.
At first, Prince Faggot’s concept may strike audiences the wrong way. Speculating on the future of a real-life 11-year-old boy, and riddling that imagined future with sex, drugs, and trauma? It’s fraught material, to say the least.
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But Prince Faggot is constantly reminding us that its Prince George is not the Prince George: He’s a character inspired by reality, yes, but not based in it, and Prince Faggot itself is not a documentary, but a work of fiction. The play frequently references its own theatricality with character-breaking monologues, delineations between the world on stage on the world beyond it, and even its own set: backstage elements, including the doors to the dressing room, remain visible for the duration of the show.
Besides, as Prince Faggot accurately points out, people don’t magically become queer once adolescence hits. When queer folks look back on our own childhoods, we can pinpoint the moments that showed our queerness with crystal clarity. Almost all of us have our own helicopter photos; the only difference is that ours didn’t get plastered on magazine covers or inspire think pieces across social media.
“Yes, there’s a real child named George,” one performer says in the show’s opening moments. “But obviously this is not his story, only he can write that for himself. This is our story.”
Rest assured, this is not Red, White & Royal Blue adapted for the stage, though both explore the potential of a queer British prince. Far from it — where that fan-favorite YA movie and the book it’s based on lean into the saccharine sap of the rom-com genre, Prince Faggot gets uncomfortably real about what putting a gay royal under a microscope would entail.
Prince Faggot’s inciting incident is a new romance between Prince George and his boyfriend Dev, an everday Brit who’s suddenly forced into the spotlight. Through Dev’s eyes, the audience is thrust into the media circus that surrounds the monarchy, highlighting the central dilemmas George is facing: Is his queerness holding him back from his full potential as a royal? Is his royalty holding him back from embracing his queerness? And ultimately, is the combination too paradoxical for him to ever actually find satisfaction?
Prince Faggot’s decade-spanning scale is one of its many sources of comedy, from poking fun at how Elon Musk’s tech empire could someday doom Brad Pitt, to imagining that genetically modified tigers will become our new housecats. The play earns plenty of laughs, too, simply from accurately putting the nuances of queer conversation on stage: Tannahill’s dialogue is quick-witted and insightful in equal measure. If we’re lucky, Prince Faggot marks the beginning of a breakout for Tannahill in New York’s theater scene — his is a voice that deserves to be heard on as many stages as possible.
But the show has much more to offer than laughs. It’s compelling: family drama is family drama, even (or especially) when the royal family is the household in question. It’s profound: meditations on the intersection of privilege and queerness are well worth your attendance even if you’re not a royal yourself. It’s erotic: the play’s explicit scenes bring a rare level of authenticity to queer kink. The thoughtful intimacy direction by UnkleDave’s Fight-House proves that well-executed, intentional sex scenes across media can — and should! — hold narrative importance, despite what modern-day puritans may espouse online.
All six cast members rise to the challenge of this theatrical marathon: Prince Faggot runs approximately two hours with no intermission. As royal parents William and Kate, K. Todd Freeman and Rachel Crowl provide a pitch-perfect mix of prim, proper, and patronizing. David Greenspan is hilarious and heartfelt as both butler Andrew and communications director Jaqueline — the latter role exemplifying the power of a blunt bob. Mihir Kumar gives a masterclass in charisma as love interest Dev, making it easy to see why he’d be a lifelong obsession. And N’yomi Allure Stewart, despite taking a backseat for much of the show as Princess Charlotte, steals the scene every time she’s allowed to, particularly with a passionate closing monologue that reframes just what royalty means in a queer context.
And at the center of it all, John McCrea, best known for starring in Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, delivers a career-defining (or redefining) performance as George. Prince Faggot demands a lot of McCrea: both emotional and physical vulnerability, manic highs and abyssal lows, and ensuring that — despite it all — this royal antihero stays sympathetic. Needless to say, McCrea delivers on all of it in spades.
The show’s technical elements, too, are near impossible to fault. The scenic design by David Zinn evocatively mixes classic British architecture with the neon and jagged edges of queer nightlife. The costumes by Montana Levi Blanco and hair by Cookie Jordan strike the perfect balance of realism and royalty’s inherent fantasy. And artful lighting by Isabella Byrd, sound by Lee Kinney, props by Matt Carlin, and aerial effects (yes, you read that right, aerial effects) by Paul Rubin all work together to complete this vivid portrait of what happens when monarchy gets messy — or rather, when the mess of monarchy rises to the surface. ♦
Prince Faggot runs through July 13 at Playwrights Horizions in New York City. Tickets are available here.
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