Surviving the bullies: Paul Capsis opens his heart for Quentin Crisp show

His one-man show, Resident Alien, opens at Sydney’s Seymour Centre on July 12, following its Melbourne run.

Paul Capsis had it coming from every side. He was effeminate, gay and from a Greek family – three reasons not to fit into his inner Sydney suburban childhood. And right from the start he got the message: you’re different and we’re gonna make you pay for that. He was picked on, bullied, ridiculed and bashed. It was only the kindness of an accepting grandma and family members that got him through, more or less, in one piece.

From the moment he came across Quentin Crisp he latched onto a kindred spirit. Crisp also had the triple whammy: he was effeminate and gay and though British he was despised by his own countrymen for being different.

No one could be more ready to portray Crisp on stage, bringing stoic life-worn self-belief to the role of a man who proudly wore his differences in the face of unbearable ridicule.

Crisp took the abuse on the chin and, in turn, apologised to no one, least of all those of his own kind, his gay contemporaries, whom he seemed to be at pains to offend as much as the establishment found offence in him.

Paul Capsis is on the line from his home in Sydney.

The title Resident Alien clearly implies Quentin Crisp was not of this earth, a stranger in a strange land. Yes! [laughs]. Indeed he was, he was. Throughout most of his life, in England anyway, then later in America which is where he got the label “resident alien” when he went to live there at about 75. It’s very unusual for someone to migrate and find a new life in a different country at that age but it just proves anything is possible, doesn't it?

His book Resident Alien [1996] is a diary. His other books are Naked Civil Servant [1968], of course. I read that many, many years ago because Mr Crisp has always been a hero of mine. Another is How to Become a Virgin [1981]. Then there was the extraordinary film of Naked Civil Servant [1975] with Mr Hurt, who’s such a great actor.

Quentin Crisp was extraordinary. He was an alien. And he had such great talent and wit, though many were preoccupied with his appearance.

He went out of his way to antagonise the gay community, the very people to whom he might have reached out for support. Yes, yes, he did. But he did that with everyone and with everything. He was contrary. It wasn't just the homosexual community he was conflicted about. But always there was the wit, that dry slightly acidic view. I’ve seen footage of him being reviled by a homosexual audience on the talkshow Sally Jesse Raphael in the ’80s.

I've seen him interviewed in New York when, as always, he made it very clear he was not just a homosexual but an effeminate homosexual. There was no ambiguity.

Whenever he found he was confronting people, which was often, his philosophy was, well, you need to know we exist, you need to know we are here and if I bother you that much I will remove myself if I’m offending you. But even we need to catch the bus, even we can't walk everywhere.

Yes, he was very unusual but he was also most courageous. Um, I mean, in my own life I’ve experienced a bit of what he experienced, being attacked violently, physically, verbally, because of my appearance. He spoke a lot about the fact that he couldn't change himself.

And I felt like that. I didn't know how to change myself, I didn't have the skills. Mr Crisp went a step further, he was determined not to change, determined to stay who he was.

One of the saddest chapters in his book Resident Alien was about how the one place he got the worst rejection, vilification, was in the homosexual underground community of London. He was asked to leave venues because he was obvious, he was effeminate, he dyed his hair henna red and he painted his nails and put on lipstick. He was always obviously a man.

Hotel proprietors would say could you please leave, you're bringing attention to our establishment. It was a seven-year conviction if you were gay, you know. They’d say if you're not willing to play the game we don't want you around.

It was harsher then. It still exists to this day in 2016 but it's a bit more subtle.

What happened to you? I went to high school, that's what happened to me. It literally started the minute I set foot in the school. I had this wonderful fantasy life with my grandmother and my Greek and Maltese family and to a degree I was protected.

The only time I knew being effeminate was wrong was once when my brother to get me back for something I'd done outed me to my father as a transsexual. He outed me to my father that I wore drag.

When I was a child I thought I was female. I thought I was a girl. And I’ve heard Mr Crisp say the same thing. He also said he was a man in a man's body but with a female brain and I always identified with that, that I have a man's body but I have a female brain.

Similarly I thought I was a girl. In my mid to late teens I accepted that I was a male, that I was effeminate and there was nothing I could do about it.

I didn't know who Quentin Crisp was when all that was going on with me. I wish I had because he would’ve been a mentor. He was anyway, later on in life.

What did your 15-year-old self need someone like Quentin to say, or do? I would have needed him to tell me how I could stop it from happening. All through kindy, primary and high school, my entire history of school, you know, I, I, I just didn't know how to stop it. The violence got absolutely at its peak worst when I was in year 9.

And he would probably have said, well, there's nothing you can do about it, you just have to live each day and be brave. That’s what he did. He never relented. Ever.

What was done to you? Well, I was physically, er, bashed and I did not go a day without being verbally harassed. Called a poofter, faggot. The earliest I can remember being called a poofter was in the 1970s, in primary school. I was about 8, maybe 7, even earlier. And not really comprehending what it meant. I didn't know what it was. Mr Crisp has said that, too.

And the kids who picked on you also didn’t understand either, did they? Not really, no. They were young! They were kids, they were my age, they were children.

On reflection I can say it was absolute misogyny because what those children addressed about my appearance and the way I spoke -- I spoke like a girl, as I do now ’cos I’m still part female -- the worst thing, the biggest sin, was that I was female. That was the horror, that was the crime, that was the thing that appalled them more than anything. “YOU sound like a GIRL! YOU sound like my SISTER!”

I remember becoming very self-conscious and not knowing what they were talking about and thinking well they know I'm a girl, too. I know I'm a girl and they see me as a girl, but they're saying it's bad. That part I didn't understand. I thought what's wrong with being a girl?

I liked girls. I loved girls. I was obsessed with girls, with women, their look, their appearance, their energy, their kindness, their playfulness. Those were the things as a kid I adored. I had crushes on girls.

And then about age 7 or 8 I became obsessed and in love with a Turkish boy who was very dark skinned. And I've never looked back, you know what I mean?

Even with all of that violence, there was a part of me that was sad for those boys because I felt that for them to be so angry I thought their parents were mean.

I thought their community, their church or whatever it was they were coming from was a mean place. I thought, gee, they're really angry, there’s something wrong with them, they're upset about something. Why am I making them angry? Why does my presence make them so upset?

Yes, I had a little bit of empathy for them and I just thought well, I'm lucky, I have my family, my grandmother, my cousins, I have all this wonderful support, they don't care, you know, they let me play with dolls and they let me dress up and then of course I learnt quickly that I had to do it quietly and behind closed doors and I had to be careful I wasn’t seen doing all those things.

So I developed a very interior imaginative life.

How did you crawl out of that hole? [long silence] Oh, well, I just suffered it. I lived through nervous anxiety throughout my school life because I dreaded every day. As I got older I started to develop a thick skin. I found a part of myself that was tough which I didn't know I had. I didn't know how to fight physically but I never let anyone get away with it.

How did you speak to yourself? What words did you use? Oh, er, [silence]: “Hang in there.” Just, ah, [silence] I don't know, I got tougher. My nature is not to be tough, I was meek, I loved playing, laughing. I didn't see the world in a nasty way, I just wanted everyone to love each other.

I thought the world was like an Elvis Presley movie, people would start singing and dancing in the middle of the street for no good treason. I grew up in the age of TV! And that gave me an unrealistic view. When I got older I started to look at people and how they survived.

I used to look desperately at myself in the mirror and look for what others saw. What is it that everyone else sees that I cannot find in that mirror? I actually found the opposite. I thought I was extremely plain. I thought I was uninteresting, I saw no remarkable things about myself.

I thought other kids were remarkable. I loved those things in other people but I couldn't find them in myself. I just thought, I don't know what they see.

And I did not understand absolutely anything to do with sexuality. I was a child. I didn't know about sex. I knew about attraction and about love but not the sexual act. And there was this misogyny being thrown at me, this hatred towards my feminine side.

I had no masculine attributes at all. I wasn't interested in sport and of course I got vilified for that.

Surry Hills, where I went to school and grew up, was rough. It was working class. I'm working class. There were all these ideas about how one is to be and there were teachers who didn't like me who would vilify me because I was feminine and ethnic. They were also harsh and cruel because I was ethnic.

Quentin was of a different generation, different country, different culture, but suffered like you. How did he get out of that hole? How did he find his own personal space and live there? Well, he didn’t find it – he often said it came to him. He never tried to change anything. Never. You see that’s the most extraordinary thing about him, especially in London in the ’30s.

He went to a private school with its politics and hierarchies. Not pleasant for him at all but that’s where he developed his wit and humour, his armour. Later when he went to London people abused him in the street, every day. They spat at him, bashed him.

He was once attacked by a group of men, he was followed by police. They tried to convict him at one stage.

One of the funniest things was when he tried to join the army because he had no money, nothing, and wanted to be looked after, told what to. He turns up with his red henna hair and they bend him over and spend a quite extraordinary amount of time with his backside and then they declare he’s a homosexual.

He said yes, I am a homosexual! As though he’d ever tried to hide it! And they present him with papers to say he's a deviant and exempt from the war.

When I read his account of that I was in the library and I screeched with laughter, I was crying with laughter. He had a great dry sense of humour.

He couldn’t apply himself to a job. In the end the job he could do was life modelling. Because he could hold a pose for hours and hours and hours. He was passive but somehow he always maintained his dignity. He was incredibly smart and had a great gift with language and words.

When he said he didn't believe in rights for homosexuals did he seriously believe that? Yes, he believed it. He also believed that people in general should not protest. A waste of time, he said. Politics was a waste of time. His view was you just accept what you’re given and make the most of it.

But clearly he was wrong. Can we afford to pass judgment on him for that? No, I wouldn't pass judgement on him at all. I still view him as incredibly courageous. I come from a different time. I was like him up to a point and then I decided to fight.

His father openly rejected him. His mother tolerated him. He found his voice and he never flinched.

He made comments about, for example, Princess Diana. He said she got what she deserved and his publisher rang him up screaming what are you thinking to say that?!! The homosexual community loves Diana, how on earth can you say that about her? He said well, she was always Lady Diana before she was Princess Diana, so she knew the racket, what was wrong with her? All she had to do was stand there and wave and be married to the Prince and be photographed! What more could a woman want? He said her problem was that she thought she mattered.

Now I think that’s a very interesting way of looking at the world.

He loved Maggie Thatcher. He said she was great because she was kicking everyone into shape. He said she was an inspiring woman and what a shame it was that she couldn’t remain a woman.

Finally, in his 60s and 70s, he found a place, New York, where he could be himself. He was given a platform and he was championed as someone who lived absolutely as he wanted to live at a time when you couldn’t. He became a prototype for all who came after him, all the great figures of pop music and art. He was before Andy Warhol, before David Bowie, Freddie Mercury, Boy George. And he never changed how he was.

But I know that I’m not the same person because of what I experienced, it changed me forever. Religion in my life changed me, it affected how I was as a person, and the violence I experienced affected me and changed me. Now I live my life, I get on with it, I’m happy, I struggle like other people and I’m grateful that I have my work.

Quentin was a great figure in terms of how to survive without going on about it. His thing was you just do what you need to do.

When he was criticised by the homosexual community he never changed his tune. When they said “You keep saying we're not normal but we are normal!” He’d say: “Oh, no, I’m not normal, I’ve never been normal.” He knew full well that the way he lived was not like others lived.

I’ve always loved the way he dressed, everything about him. For me Quentin extended his hand to me and showed me we homosexuals have always been here, we didn’t just arrive in the ’60s – or the ’50s, ’40s, ’20s. We’ve always been here. No matter what they do to us. ❏