Ejaculations from the Charm Factory

E jaculations from the

Charm Factory A MEMOIR

This page intentionally left blank

E jaculations from the Charm Factory A MEMOIR

Sky Gilbert MISFIT

ECW PRESS

Copyright © ECW PRESS, 2000 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of ECW PRESS. C A N A D I A N C A T A L O G U I N G I N P U B L I C A T I O N DATA

Gilbert, Sky Ejaculations from the charm factory A MISFIT BOOK ISBN I-55O22-432-8

i. Gilbert, Sky. 2. Dramatists, Canadian (English) — 20* century — Biography.* 3. Independent filmmakers — Canada — Biography. 4. Actors — Canada — Biography. I. Title. PS8563-I474Z53 2000 0812'.54 000-931728-7 pR<ji99.3.0524824164 2000 Cover and text design by Tania Craan Layout by Mary Bowness Cover image by David Rasmus Printed by Transcontinental Distributed in Canada by General Distribution Services and in the U.S. by LPC Group. Published by ECW PRESS 2.120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, M4E IE2 ecwpress.com The publication of Ejaculations from the Charm Factory hashas been generously supported by The Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program. CanadS PRINTED AND BOUND IN CANADA

This is the way I am Yes I'm just made this way And when I want to laugh Why then I laugh all day I love the guy that loves me So how am I to blame If the guy who loves me Is not every night the same? So that's the way I am I'm made this way you see So what more do you want? What do you want from me? The Queen of 42nd Street JACQUES PREVERT (TRANS. ERIC BENTLEY)

This page intentionally left blank

Then suddenly, in the midst of some very witty dialogue, the entire cast will walk to the footlights and shout Chekhov's advice: "It would be more profitable for the farmer to raise rats for the granary than for the bourgeois to nourish the artist, who must always be occupied with the undermining institutions." The Dream life o/Balso Snell — NATHANAEL WEST

This page intentionally left blank

This book is dedicated to the true Buddies in Bad Times Ken McDougall, Patsy Lang, David Pond, Edward Roy, R.M. Vaughan, and (especially) Sue Golding

This page intentionally left blank

I luould like to take this opportunity to thank tiuo people luho supported me during the writing of this memoir: Michael Holmes and lanjarvis. Michael, my editor, is everything an editor should be — tactful, judicious, and incredibly sharp. This memoir would not haue been possible without him constantly nudging me to dig deeper and 'Wire proud." Ian Jaruis, my boyfriend, is my inspiration. He offered me canny aduice on countless trickycly issues. Also, I loue him.

This page intentionally left blank

a mAKING bUDDIES

I write this with trepidation. Mainly, I wonder why you would want to read it. What is there about Sky Gilbert's life that's going to hold anyone's interest through a whole book? I certainly don't think my personal history is particularly fascinating to anyone but a dear friend. If this book has any value, it will be because of the important period of time onto which my life has trespassed. This memoir spans the 18 years, from 1979 to 1997, when I was Artistic Director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre in Toronto. It was a time when my life intersected, intimately, with two worlds — theatre and sexual politics. And I was able to watch both change, gradually but fundamentally. What's so important about the period from 1979 to 1997? March 18,1979, was the closing night of the Broadway play On the Twentieth Century. This brilliant musical comedy was directed by Harold Prince, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Cy Coleman. On the Twentieth Century was one of the wittiest, "singingest" musical comedies to be born from the hothouse of American musical theatre. It was also a gigantic box office flop. Why? Because by 1979 Andrew Lloyd Webber was developing the "mega-musical," and Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line was already on its way to becoming one of the longest-running plays in Broadway history. In 1979 the tide was changing in New York theatre; intelligent lyrics, good books — talent — didn't matter anymore. Big bucks did. Not coincidentally, as the brilliant librettists seemed to disappear, so did the serious playwrights. Also not coincidentally, as New York was experiencing this dumbing down of the mainstream, there was a corresponding renaissance of the avant-garde. Richard Foreman, Lee Breuer, and Elizabeth LeCompte concocted astounding visions with experimental theatre companies like the Ontological Hysterical Theater and the Wooster Group. These fundamental

l

changes in New York's arts scene would eventually have their effect on my professional theatre life in Toronto. And two months later in San Francisco, on May 2,1, 1979, Dan White was given a lenient sentence for a heinous cold-blooded hate crime — the murder of gay city hall supervisor Harvey Milk. Near riots ensued outside San Francisco City Hall. The murder of Milk was symptomatic of the furious backlash that accompanied the rise of gay liberation in the 'yos. From Anita Bryant's rage against homosexuals (who, she said, "eat sperm") to Toronto's bathhouse raids, the war was on. Gay liberation changed its very nature during the '8os, especially when the hatemongers were given additional ammunition by the mysterious "gay epidemic" that was to surface two years after White's sentencing. These changes had a significant effect on my work as an activist in Toronto. Through Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, these two worlds — theatre and sexual politics — intersected and sometimes merged. The most important and absolutely true thing I can tell you about that time is this: I was there. The whole thing really started in 1979.1 remember the day very clearly. I was living in a rooming house on Huron Street, in "The Annex" in downtown Toronto. I remember that there were lots of youngish people living there. One woman, who acted as a sort of housemother, was a dedicated salesperson for Amway products. I remember hearing that Amway was connected with Scientology. And that Scientologists never blinked. I remember watching to see if she ever blinked. (She did.) I remember a girl across the hall who was an aspiring country-and-western singer. And going to see her sing in a very tacky bar in Parkdale. I remember that Beverly D'Angelo lived in our rooming house before she became a big Hollywood star. And I remember spinning around my room that day. I had just discovered Patti Smith. The song was "Because the Night." It went: "Because the night belongs to lovers." I was ecstatic because I had just decided that I was a homosexual. I was spinning because I felt so happy. Free at last. How does one decide these things? Well, my very special spinning day was a long time coming. You don't just spin around like the Wicked Witch of the West and melt into a homosexual.

No, it was a torturous journey. A year before that spinning day, when I founded Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, I wasn't officially gay (though I suppose I was, unofficially). After . uating from the honours theatre program at York University in 1977,1 enrolled in the Masters program in Drama at the University of Toronto. But I dropped out in 1979, just shy of getting my degree. My last year at U of T was very frustrating. The academic world was somewhat constricting for a young gay man struggling to burst out of his sexual cocoon. Yet it was also a safe and reassuring place. For instance, I liked my classes with Robertson Davies. He was somewhat pompous, but very funny. All you had to do was accept the fact that he came from another world. Robertson Davies taught Edwardian theatre, and it was if he had been freeze-dried in that era. He was irrepressibly heterosexual and embarrassingly racist. On the first day of class he went around the room and asked everyone about their origins. He would linger a little too long on the stories told by the pretty, white, blonde-haired girls, because these were his favourites. When he came to a dear friend of mine — Forster Freed — he figured out, of course, that Forster was Jewish. "Oh, you would enjoy the plays of that great Edwardian playwright Israel Zangwill," said Professor Davies. My friend was so insulted by the implication that a Jew would only be interested in Jewish literature that he dropped the class the next day. I understood completely. Would Forster be allowed to comment on Christian plays after Davies had pigeonholed his thesis subject as "Jewish Edwardian writers"? At the end of the year, Davies made a particularly revealing anachronistic comment. It was a tradition for his wife to serve lunch on the last day of class. So there we were, sipping our soup in his "chambers," the sombre basement seminar space that usually served as our classroom; on this day a door was quietly opened and we realized it was connected to the private apartments of Davies and his Australian wife. Mrs. Davies had more personality than I had expected. While she was deftly slipping the elegant dishes in front of us, and cleaning up after us, she managed to support and occasionally critique her celebrated husband's pronouncements. Robertson Davies asked everyone what they were going to do for the summer. One of the girls said, "I've got a job as a waitress." And Davies, peering down at her through his ponderous bifocals observed, with generous Edwardian condescension, "Oh, that must be very difficult for you." The girl answered, "No,

3

actually I enjoy it." Davies's wife helpfully chided him. "Oh dear, being a waitress is not the awful job these days that it used to be. Some girls quite like doing it." All of which just made me think of Bette Davis in the movie of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, acting the part of the vicious, sluttish cockney guttersnipe — probably the image in Davies's mind whenever you said the word "waitress" to him. Davies seemed to like me a lot. Of course, I wasn't a homosexual then. Since childhood I had struggled with gay feelings, scribbling endlessly in diaries, trying to quell or control my desires for men. I knew that I was able to have sex with women and I did so. Rarely. While I was at the Drama Centre at U of T, I had a very pretty girlfriend named Paula Turko, who was a Radio and Television student at Ryerson. We'd met when she was a candy girl and I was an usher at the Uptown Cinema. I loved her beauty and cheer; we had fun together. I tried to have sex with her at least twice a month, but for me it was a rather odious task. Not because of Paula, who was a wonderful partner, but because I was trying desperately to fulfil my duties as a heterosexual man without any real desire. Don't ask me why it took me 27 years to come out of the closet. I don't know. It's not even that my background was particularly strict or religious. I was, however, a very good boy. My mother tells a couple of stories which, I think, are revealing. Apparently, when I was very young my room was quite messy. My mother took me aside one day and told me to keep it clean. Well, after that discussion my room was always spotless. In fact, I insisted on keeping my room so clean it gave my mother the creeps. Soon after I was born, a sister arrived, and there was much sibling rivalry, although we get along fine now. Lydia was smarter (apparently she learned to tie her shoes before I did) and, being a very pretty little girl, she got a lot of attention. My mother found me one day, banging my head against the radiator. Of course she was alarmed. The doctor told her not to worry — I was only trying to get attention. Some might say I've been banging my head against that radiator ever since. And then there were the letters to God. As I mentioned, we were not particularly religious. We belonged to a New England Protestant sect called the "Congregationalists." The nearest my parents could come to defining the religion was to say ths.t this sect believed in allowing the congregation to have

power in running the church. Still, as a child, God was very real to me — so real that I would send him letters. I'd fashion them into little airplanes and hurl them out the window. I'm not sure what was in the letters. But I'm certain that God (if she exists) received them, and, as usual, proceeded to do whatever was necessary, regardless of my missives. I was born in Norwich, Connecticut, which is a very small town. But we moved to Buffalo, New York, when I was six because my father (who was a manager at the Travelers Insurance Company) was transferred there. In Buffalo, I was a precocious student at Harlem Road School. I was precocious at home, too, organizing the neighbourhood kids into impromptu performances that I wrote. I once gathered a whole bunch of Beatles songs and rewrote the lyrics so that they would apply to my little play, which had something to do with a witch and a frog. In Grade Six I was Mrs. Zielinkski's favourite and I was asked to write my autobiography. Because of these impromptu performances, I titled the piece "The Autobiography of a Playwright." When I was 12 and my sister was n, my parents divorced. It was a traumatic time for both of us, because we'd lived an idyllic life in a Buffalo suburb. What had been a kind of Leave It To Beaver existence suddenly turned strange. We had done a lot of figure skating in Buffalo, and my parents were quite active in the local curling club, so my mother thought that Toronto, a very popular figure skating city, would be an ideal place for us to start our new life. Perhaps I should say something at the outset about being an American in Canada. I'm still an American citizen — some Canadian immigration guy talked me out of taking Canadian citizenship years ago, saying that I have all the advantages of dual citizenship as a landed immigrant. The fact is, I talk like an American, walk like one, and think like one. If you've spent the first 12 years of your life in the USA, it's hard to leave your Americanness behind. The influence, in my case, is mainly cultural. I was brought up on American sitcoms. You might say that many Canadians are, too. The difference is this: Americans identify with their own cultural icons. Canadians, though they watch American TV, distance themselves from American stars and dare to judge them. For example, in Buffalo, everyone from my parents' generation idolized Judy Garland. When I came to Canada I heard people say things like "I find her very loud." Judy Garland, loud? In America, that's like calling the Pope a dirty old man. And I'm convinced that

5

my mother — though she might deny it — modelled herself after Lucille Ball. (And not just Lucy's wacky side, but her glamorous, motherly side, too.) These people were not just characters we watched on TV or in movies; they were role models and gods. In those early expatriate days, I wore my Americanness as sort of a badge. In junior high I found myself ridiculed when I defended American politics (I was a very right-wing adolescent; my mother campaigned for Barry Goldwater). I was the "loud, argumentative American" and proud of it. I'm still loud and argumentative. And there's a huge American influence on my work. There is very little that is bucolic or ruminative about Sky Gilbert's novels and plays. My work is controversial, funny, and often makes direct or indirect reference to American cultural icons. I think this has made me a bit of a misfit on the Canadian art scene (never mind that I'm an outspoken drag queen). Or maybe it's the fact that I think what I've got to say is actually important. It seems to me that lots of people everywhere have writing or acting talent, but it's the ones who are brave enough to trumpet their speciality who get noticed. That bravery is something I learned from being an American. (That came out sounding patriotic; I didn't mean it to, honest.) It seems to me that every damn TV show and movie I watched as a kid repeated one theme and one theme only: Follow your own path! Be an individual! Open a new window, open a new door! Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, I took the one less travelled. Do you get my drift? Unfortunately, even though Americans go on and on about the importance of individualism, they're not very good at handling real individuals. That's what makes me glad I live in Canada. I followed my own path and it led me to become an outspoken homosexual and drag queen — an entity that is tolerated, I think, slightly better in Canada than the U.S. The American cultural message is contradictory, to say the least — be your own person, but don't act too strange. Go figure. But I've digressed. Suffice it to say that my mother took my sister and me to Toronto, where we could continue our schooling and be near ice rinks to pursue our figure skating careers. We joined the Granite Club and worked hard with our skating "pro," Mr. Menzies. (Figure skating stardom, however, was not in the cards for me; Mr. Menzies said I jumped like a ton of bricks.) Then we moved to Don Mills. I remember my mother mentioned that Don Mills rivalled New Rochelle, New York (where Dick Van Dyke and Mary

Tyler Moore lived in the famous sitcom), as a clean, upwardly mobile middle-class suburb. At Milneford Junior High, I became famous for being a "browner," as well as for being an American. My average was somewhere in the high 905. Also, because music had been required at my elementary school in Buffalo, I was quite proficient on the cello and far ahead of the rest of my junior high class. I used to love history classes, where I'd get into furious arguments defending the U.S. About this time, I also discovered Ayn Rand, imagining myself as Howard Roark in The Fountainhead. I started writing. At first, it was mostly journals and poetry. When I reached high school, my marks sank a bit, because I was obsessed with my own world of music, Ayn Rand, and writing. A passionate loner at age 16,1 wrote a very Ayn Randish novel about a heroic pianist who composed Rachmaninoffian music. Rachmaninoff was Rand's favourite composer, so I was devoted to him. I would listen to his second piano concerto, and then roam about the tall buildings on Don Mills Road and stand alone in the wind. In my mind, I was evoking Howard Roark's passion for architecture. It all seems a little silly to me now, but I was developing what would become a lifelong habit: searching for the inspired moment. I could feverishly call up inspired feelings by listening to my favourite music when alone. These "inspired feelings" consisted mostly of feeling misunderstood and sorry for myself. In high school there were few girlfriends. I spent most of my time alone in white shirts and pleated dress pants, dressed like a geek. It was the late '6os and kids were smoking marijuana on their lunch breaks, but I sure didn't know about it. I was conscious of having gay fantasies, but I was very ashamed of them — Ayn Rand didn't approve of homosexuals, and I knew that my family wouldn't either. Late in high school I started experiencing anxiety attacks and visited a psychiatrist for a while. Something else helped me deal with my anxious feelings. I discovered that I loved the theatre. Previously, my inspired moments were completely solitary. But one evening, while I was playing the cello for a high school production of Annie Get Your Gun, I had an epiphany — only this time it was in the presence of others. It seemed to me that being a part of this production was so enthralling that it took me far away from my adolescent anxieties and propelled me into a moment of ecstasy. I thought, This is the way I want to feel all the time. I had a very sympathetic theatre teacher, Mr. Boone, who

7

encouraged me when I asked him if I should try and write a play. He acted as dramaturge. I wrote a one-act called The Mark about a peace-loving youngyoungh man who can't resist his parents' pressure to fight in the Vietnam War. The boy dies in battle, and his mother and his girlfriend have an intense climactic argument over his coffin. The play won a Simpsons Drama Festival Award (for distinctive merit) in 1972. Amazingly, the lead was played by Dan Hill, who went on to some success during the '705 as a sensitive, barefooted pop folksinger. When I knew Dan, he was a sweet and political high school student. He was straight as an arrow, but we had a lot in common. I remember some very agonized adolescent conversations in which we discussed life, death, right, wrong, and our respective futures. After we left school he invited me over to his new apartment to hear a recording of his song "Rollercoaster," which would be his first big hit. I remember telling him that, to me, it sounded just as good as Paul McCartney. As well as starring in it, Dan wrote the theme song for The Mark, called "Do The Duty (For Your Country. ..)." The success of the play made me feel like I'd found a home, a public arena into which I could bring my private, inspired moments. That place was the theatre. I was very proud of The Mark, but still very guilty about my homosexual feelings. I thought I should have a girlfriend. My psychiatrist convinced me that I could have sex with women, so I did. I started wearing jeans, and seemed to join the human race — at least tentatively. Then I was accepted into the acting program at York University. I still had an interest in music, but getting a place in the much-coveted acting program at York made me think I might have a future in the theatre. I enjoyed four years there, but I quit the acting program after two and took courses in playwrighting and theatre criticism instead. Angus Braid was a wonderful young playwrighting teacher, and he was very encouraging. Mavor Moore, the venerable veteran of Spring Thaw, also taught the craft. He was very concerned about punctuation. In my final meeting with him, he gave me some sage advice: "Write a play about a deaf girl who is sexually abused. You'll make a lot of money." He was referring, of course, to his own play, Johnny Belinda. I really had no idea if he was being funny or not. Mavor was one of those people who, as far as I'm concerned, must have been born a wise middle-aged man with a bald head and glasses. Despite his experience as a comic writer for Spring Thaw, it was always hard for me to imagine

him ever being young or saying something ironic. I decided not to take his advice — to my professional detriment, some might say. It was at York that I met Sally Clark, who would become a lifelong friend. She was a willowy blonde with a face of such Pre-Raphaelite wistfulness that it belied her sharp intelligence. I had a closer relationship with her, in some ways, than I did with my new girlfriend, Paula. Sally was a writer and a painter. At York, we took a poetry class with Irving Layton that I will never forget. Layton was as much of a character as Robertson Davies, but he was as modern and scandalous as Davies was pinched and Edwardian. Early on in the course, he generalized, provocatively, that "Women can never be poets." Since the class was made up mostly of women, the reaction was hostile. He always played the devil's advocate, so when he picked out one of my poems as "a true modern love poem," I didn't know whether to be flattered or insulted. The poem, entitled "Blue Room," was not as much about being in love, really, as about my disillusionment with straight sex (though I didn't know I was disillusioned at the time). Irving, however, thought it very heterosexual and charmingly cynical. The funniest thing about that class was that Layton happened to meet his future wife, Harriet, there. She was a very pretty student, and always sat next to him. I had no idea that they were flirting. They married soon after the term ended. I asked Sally, "When did all that happen?" Sally thought I was naive. "Don't you remember that poem Harriet wrote? 'The Fire in You Inspires the Fire in Me?'" I did, vaguely. "Well, she wrote that for Layton. To seduce him." I was shocked. I didn't know how I missed it. When the opportunity came to continue my theatre studies in the MA program at the Drama Centre at the University of Toronto, I decided to put off growing up and dealing with the real world a little longer. At the Drama Centre I was considered, and provisionally accepted, as a Ph.D. candidate. The only thing that threatened to ruin the perfect picture was my impending homosexuality. Which I still wasn't quite willing to admit to. Let me make this perfectly clear: 1 wasn't a closeted practising homosexual. I wasn't cheating on my girlfriend. I had never had sex with a man. And I was monogamous with Paula. The young man who presented himself each week for class with Robertson Davies for his MA degree was well-scrubbed and scrupulously

9,

heterosexual. (Only last year I returned to the University of Toronto to finish my Masters degree. Jean, the accommodating secretary at the Drama Centre, remembered me from when I was 27 and in the closet. "Oh, I always remember you were such a nice boy. So polite," she said. I suppose I was.) I think that I left the Drama Centre because I was yearning to come out. I just couldn't do it there, for some reason. I had been a university student for almost eight years. For some reason, being a heterosexual was linked with university life; leaving there would mean I would have to be myself. Perhaps this notion had something to do with my frustration with theatre studies. One of the reasons for my decision was that my off-campus aspirations were competing with my academic duties. I was so busy being involved with numerous off-campus productions that I had little time for school. Since my undergraduate years at York, I had been staging small but ambitious productions in library spaces and at the 519 Church Street Community Centre with a little outfit called the Cabaret Company. A lot of these productions originated in the York Cabaret Theatre, where I had collaborated with a close-knit group of student friends to put on rather silly musicals. I remember one was called The Gold-Diggers ofip^ and another was called God Rest Ye Merry, Melvin. There were a couple of more serious endeavours, both of which involved my friend and roommate at York, Matt Walsh. There was a Brecht cabaret, which featured a huge number of Brecht/Weill songs culled from various operettas hooked together with my own libretto. There was also City Nights, a musical that featured my first gay characters. I've reread the old script and I'm amazed at how accurate these early depictions of gay life were (for a closet case, that is). Strangely, I was able to create from my imagination details about a world that I was about to enter and knew very little about. And, significantly, there was a musical called Buddies in Bad Times, which was a collection of songs by Jacques Prevert and Joseph Kosma. I was enthralled with Jacques Prevert. He was a French poet of the '305 and '405 who began as a radical surrealist. In the '405, he left that intellectual crowd, but his work always retained the unexpected fantastical images and the orgiastic rhythms of surrealism. He became a screenwriter and a "poet of the people." In fact, he's still my favourite poet. His most famous creation is probably the screenplay for Les Enfants du paradis which, like his other collaborations with filmmaker Marcel Came (Quai des brumes, Le Jour se leve),

is considered a classic of French cinema. (It's a little-known fact that Prevert wrote the lyrics for the popular standard "Autumn Leaves," which also has music by Kosma.) The Prevert poem "Le concert n'a pas reussi" was translated, again by Eric Bentley, as "Buddies in Bad Times." It served as the finale of the show that Matt and I produced at what is now the Helen Gardiner Phelan Theatre at the University of Toronto in 1976. It goes, as far as I can remember, like this: Buddies of mine in bad, bad times — I'm on my may! Box office receipts have been too small. It's all my fault, yes, I'm completely in the wrong. I should haue listened to you all. I should haue played "The Handsome Poodle" — that always goes doom well. But I followed my inclinationionn and later on I got depressed and sang the melancholy tale of a miserable abandoned dog. And people don't go to concerts To listen to a dog's despairing howls.1awg (That other song, about the dog pound, that number hurt us most of all!) Buddies of mine in bad times — luhen you wake up, later on once in a while think of me.

Think of a fellow who, with a smile, sings a mournful melody somewhere at night, beside the sea, and passes 'round the hat to buy something to eat something to drink.

11

Buddies of mine in bad bad times — I luish you all goodnight I'm on my iuay! This song always held special meaning for me. The story of a group of itinerant musicians who are having trouble finding box office success because of their desperate need to sing the song of a "miserable abandoned dog" touched me deeply. Prevert was the poet of the poor and the French Resistance. Some find his so-called "people's poetry" of the '405 to be overly sentimental. And it is sentimental. But he is one of the few poets who match sentiment with restraint and consistency. In Prevert's image system, children/birds/lovers are good, and soldiers/teachers/old men are bad. It's a simplistic view of the world, but it is the key to all his films. I like to think it's the key to my world view, too. Matt and I had great success with the show based on Prevert's work. After the original production at the University of Toronto, we revived it at Harbourfront Theatre. Much of the acclaim was the result of Matt's talent. He was a strong, stocky, straightforward, masculine young man who loved Jack Kerouac and acting. (He invited me out to lunch recently, after many years; it turns out that he's now in the printing business and has a family.) When we were at school together, Matt was an idealistic and extremely talented young actor. I enjoyed directing him. His energy onstage was honest and the audience liked him; it made him a good leading man. Matt was very straight and I guess he thought I was, too. I was surprised to find out later that, because we were roommates at school, people assumed we were lovers. But we weren't. When I look back on that time, I try and remember what it was like to be so near, and yet so far, from being a gay man. I certainly harboured sexual fantasies about other men. I told Paula, and she, with admirable open-mindedness, informed me that I was bisexual. She said she understood. When I encountered gay theatre — which was tentatively peeking its head above ground at that time — it angered me. Two incidents stand out in my mind. Lindsay Kemp brought his internationally acclaimed production Flowers — based on the writings of Jean Genet — to Toronto Workshop Productions (which, ironically, would become the home of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre

15 years later). Every theatre person in the city was going, and I considered myself ro he a budding director/writer/ actor, so I went with Paula. I remember being impressed by Lindsay Kemp's amazing physical work, as well as by his trim, muscled body. I attributed the latter reaction to my "biscxuality." 1 also remember being very angry after the production, thinking that it was basically all a load of shit. Kemp's sensibility was the opposite of mine; most of the words were transformed into images, so there was almost no dialogue, whereas my own theatre work is verbal, and more cinematic in its rhythms. And Kemp's actors moved incredibly slowly — it was as if they were making their way through water. Paula and I had a good laugh after the show; we left our seats in slow motion, creating a bit of a scene in the audience, giggling and mocking what we saw as the intellectual pretensions and incredible larghetto seriousness of the production. I told friends that 1 enjoyed the play — grudgingly. My contemporaries were amazed by my arrogant dismissal of Kemp's genius. But was I dismissing his talent or mocking him in order to quell my own sexual insecurities? I also went with my friend Danny Zanbilowic?, ro see a Theatre Second Floor production called Jekyll Play Hyde, directed by Paul Bettis. Danny wass a close heterosexual friend from Angus Braid's playwrighting class at York, although his friendship was one of the many I lost when I finally came out. Anyway, I don't remember much about the production except that the two male actors (one of whom, Bruce Vavrina, would later act in my play Art/Rat) were naked most of the time, writhing about on the floor. At thealorooaty yth end of the piece the room was plunged into darkness except for a disco ball. Bertis pumped up the disco music and the boys danced. Danny and I were outraged. I was shy, but Danny was particularly provocative, and went up to challenge Paul. "What was that supposed to mean?" demanded Danny. "Are you saying that life is just a disco?" Paul grinned that cat-who-ate-thc-canary smile of his and said, "Yes." Danny railed at him for a while, and 1 listened in energized silence. I hated Paul Bettis and his stupid play. Something about the lack of evident meaning combined with the semi-nude men made me furious. Danny and I ranted for hours after. Didn't the obfuscatory Mr. Bettis have a responsibility? Shouldn't such a shocking production supply meaning? I think it was the unabashed homosexual aesthetic of the production

13

that angered me most of all — though I never would have admitted it at the time. Three or four years later I, too, would be producing plays that featured male nudity and confounded critics. All I can say is, beware of what infuriates you — therein lies your future. Homosexuality began to rear its ugly head in the oddest corners of my life. New friends and old ones — in a series of unrelated incidents — all pointed me towards coming out. Even my breakfast was giving me a sign. Michael Carlevale was a gay man a few years my senior who ran a restaurant on Avenue Road just north of Dupont. Paula and I lived in adjoining apartment buildings just up the road, and now and then I would go to Carlevale's for breakfast. Michael wandered up to me one day and asked, "Why don't you come here more often?" I didn't know he was gay at the time. He just seemed like a suave and handsome older man. I told him I didn't have the money for big breakfasts. "What do you do for a living?" he asked. I told him jokingly that I was a starving artist. "Oh, well, then, I give starving artists free breakfasts," he said. I got my breakfasts there for a while. I have a feeling that Michael was flirting with me; at the very least he probably knew I was gay way before I did. My friend Sally Clark suspected it, too, I think. Around this time she did a comprehensive astrological chart for me. (I'm a Sagittarius, with Leo rising.) The results were fascinating. She said, "I see men everywhere. Men are going to have s. big influence on your life. Men, men, men." I asked her if there was anything else she saw. "Just men," she said, "men and change" I was so dense, I had no idea what she was getting at. A year after she did my chart, I came out. "So that's what you were trying to tell me," I said. I worked at the Book Cellar on Yonge Street just north of St. Clair in the Delisle Plaza for a couple of years in the mid-'yos. (For a while, John Krizanc of Tamara fame worked there, too.) I was just a lowly shelf-stuffer, but one of my favourite assistant managers was a girl named Liza. I loved her platonically. She was sweet, smart, and very beautiful. Then, one day, she said her brother Sean was going to work with us for a while. Well, Sean turned out to be a slender blonde kid — sharp, and full of quirky personality. I fell for him immediately. At the time I only knew that I desperately wanted to spend time alone with him — I didn't want to think about why. I finally got up the courage to ask Sean to lunch on a brilliant summer day; we munched our

sandwiches nervously, picnicking on the grass by a church. 1 was so enamoured of him. Bur of course, I didn't make any moves, and neither did he. We met years later, at Woody's, a bar on Church Street, when we were both finally out of the closet. Sean told me he always remembered our luncheon and that he had been quite in love with me, too. In 1978 I finally met my first gay friend, who would become one of the founders of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre — Ken McDougall. We were both acting in a play called Games to Play While Waiting for the Revolution, directed by Ken Gass at the Factory Theatre. The cast was a sort of government-funded youth make-work group, and Gass's technique of collective creation made us very competitive. We each were asked to bring in some our own material on the theme of "revolution" and perform it for Gass; he created rhe play from these contributions, but also threw in some Gilbert and Sullivan excerpts. The show turned out to be four hours long and quite a hodgepodge. The purpose of the play was, I think, simply to alienate the audience, to confront them with their own complacency. Gass was discouraged when the audience responded negatively, which annoyed me: after all, how could he expect an audience to enjoy four hours of alienation, scrambled with arbitrary bits of G and S and more than a dash of tedium? But Gass was really hurt. I felt just like I did after seeing Bettis's play — I was angered by the confrontational nature of the piece. I would wrestle with this issue in the future, and I'm sorry now that, instead of dismissing Ken's efforts, I didn't learn a lesson from the experience. Much later I would produce "alienating" productions of my own and then be deeply hurt by an audience's disgust. It's an important lesson, a deep contradiction inherent in avant-garde theatre. Theatre is essentially a philistine art form because, after all, most people long to be entertained. Still, the medium attracts troublemakers like Gass (and, eventually, me) who, tempted by a vast audience of the seemingly shallow middle class, want to dump smelly shit all over their bourgeois complacency. When you do, you have to be prepared to be ignored or even reviled. Though I wasn't ready to learn this important theatrical lesson during Games to Play, 1 did get to meet Ken McDougall. In deep contrast to my other actor friend at the time, Matt Walsh, Ken was thin, effeminate, and bisexual. His girlfriend, coincidentally, was also named Paula. I wasn't so much attracted to Ken sexually as I was entranced by his personality. Once a

IS

dancer, then a singer, and, when I met him, a singer/actor/dancer, Ken had what seemed to me to be a devil-may-care attitude. Unlike me, he cheated on his girlfriend with men and experimented with drugs. He sought out experience, and when experiences came, he let them happen. He was enormously funny, and, compared to me, enormously relaxed. Meeting Ken and quitting school, it seemed that I had a licence to do pretty well anything I wanted. Paula and I started to have some huge fights, and I finally decided to break up with her and come out of the closet. I think I was just tired of repressing my feelings, and the heady tonic of quitting school and befriending Ken at the same time finally turned the tide. So, that fateful "spinning day" occurred, and — inspired by Patti Smith's "Because the Night" — I decided to move, with Ken, into my first "gay" place. Ken was great friends with the Nylons, an all-male a cappella singing group that burst onto the Toronto music scene in the late 'yos. Two of the Nylons lived in a two-floor walk-up on Spadina Avenue with their manager and another fellow. I don't know how to describe moving into a house full of gay men at age 27, and then gradually coming out. A description of the flat says a lot. It was at the end of a very long staircase, above a store that seemed to sell everything. At the top of the stairs was a living room with a very high ceiling. The room was decorated in what could only be described as "high Victorian whorehouse." Red, red, red, old, fantastically thick curtains, chairs encrusted with fake gold that ejaculated dust when you sat down. Above the diningroom table was a bed. Yes, a loft bed. It was for entertaining guests. Behind the loft bed was a powder room, painted black and decorated from floor to ceiling with mirrors and pictures of nude men. Over the bathroom was a stairway that led to the second floor, where there were four bedrooms, another bathroom, a den, and a kitchen. Strangely enough, it is that second bathroom that has remained most clearly in my mind. It had a window overlooking a huge deck and the walls were lined with wood panelling; it had the feeling of a sauna in Key West. To me, the whole apartment just seemed like a sex palace. I had certainly fantasized about what men did together, and this apartment seemed to be the perfect place to realize all those fantasies. Ken moved there first, and, after another one of die Nylons moved out, I moved in, too. I thought I was being very naughty living there. There was a hole in the wall that one of the guys told me was caused by somebody fuck-

ing somebody too hard against it. The guys who lived there were always talking about "the baths." They were always running around in towels and talking about their sexual experiences very frankly, and, 1 thought at the time, crudely. The flat on Spadina began to rekindle my bathhouse fantasies, although they still seemed like very jaded and cynical places to me. Dripping with a kind of pathetic convenience. It seemed sad that these attractive men were always going on endlessly about "tricking." I was new to the game, and all I wanted was to find the perfect man and fall in love. But I was titillated. For a while I thought I was in love with Ken. But basically we were sisters, not boyfriends. When we went out to bars together, Ken was the cute one and I was the ugly stepsister (I was still sporting some extra pounds and frizzy hair). Men would obsess over his slender, dark good looks and ignore me. I was quite jealous. And we were a bit too much alike in temperament to be in love. So we were more "in like." I persuaded him to have sex with me once — a new thing, because when I first came out, I had a terrible time persuading anyone to have sex with me! It was much against his better judgement and I don't think it proved anything at all except that 1 could finally say I had had sex with a man. I remember Ken was so small and thin it seemed 1 could hold his body in the palm of my hand. We were kinda the same, only different. Ken was the practical one, the realistic one, and a perfect person to give me advice on the budding Buddies in Bad limes Theatre. One day Ken and I had a fight about something. I'm sure it was something practical I'm sure Ken said, "Sky, you'd better not do that without planning it first." I was vcty dreamy and impatient and inspired; the sign I put over my door was a street sign 1 had found that said ''Inspiration Avenue." Anyway, when we had this fight, I screamed, "Fuck you, I'm leaving!" And then I slammed the door to his little room. 1 could hear Ken behind the door saying, "You'll never open that door again." At the time I was very hurt, because it seemed to me that Ken was saying, "Our relationship is over forever. The door to my heart, my soul, is forever slammed shut." His exclamation just served to spur my angry imagination and 1 left the flat on Spadina, probably to go get drunk in some bar. When I got back much later that night, Ken and Frank, the Nylons' manager, were sitting in the kitchen, staring ruefully at a tin kettle that looked like it had been through a war. "Where were you?" Ken asked. 1 told

17

him I was sorry, that I shouldn't have gotten so upset, that I had left to drink off my anger. "Well, that's just fine and good," said Ken, "but do you realize you almost started a fire?" "No," I said. I had no idea what he was talking about. He pointed to the kettle. "That kettle was on the stove when you left. You slammed the door of my room so hard that it jammed shut and I couldn't get out. All the water burned out of the kettle and the kettle started to melt down. Luckily Frank came home and turned off the stove and let me out of my room." "We were all lucky," said Frank. "Very lucky." I was mortified. I was a new tenant and I felt terribly guilty. "Why didn't you let me out?" asked Ken. "I told you that the door would never open again." "Is that what you were telling me?" "What the fuck did you think I was telling you?" "I thought you meant that, uh, the door to our friendship was forever shut." "No, I was talking about the door. The actual door. I couldn't get it open." That's pretty much the difference between me and Ken. Ken meant what he said. I was a creature of emotions and metaphors; to me, every statement had twenty meanings. But Ken's practicality was important to the genesis of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, just like Matt's honesty and idealism, and the ambition of another guy — Gerard Ciccoritti. Gerry was a schoolmate of my ex-girlfriend, Paula. He was quite a bit younger than me and an avid filmmaker. I remember I was sort of attracted to him at the time. He's compact, dark, and furry, with piercing eyes and a warm Italian charm. I'm convinced that Gerry was (and is) a heterosexual, but there was always something incredibly bicurious about him. He seemed fascinated by sex, and talked about it a lot; perhaps for that reason, I found it hard to believe he was actually having it. He and his Italian lothario friends were always talking about their romantic exploits, and my friend Sally and I were always trying to separate the truth from the hyperbole. I remember a particularly close friend of Gerry's named Luciano. He was as attractive as Gerry, only in a lithe, blonde, northern Italian way. He liked to write poetry in cafes with the particular purpose of seducing very serious young women. I have no idea whether or not it actually worked, but he talked a good game. Gerry Ciccoritti is now a successful

Canadian commercial filmmaker and television director who has even tried his hand at the art-film genre with Paris, France — a movie I find as naive and curious about sex as Gerry always was. I'll always thank Gerry for introducing me to the films of Pier Paolo Pasolini, which inspired two plays later in my career. I also thank him for rendering my aesthetic into one sentence. Apparently a friend showed him one of my later plays and Gerry said, "You know, Sky's writing is really all about saying 'Fuck you!' to his parents." Well, frankly, I can't think of any more admirable enterprise for a writer than rebelling against the previous generation. Anyway, when Gerry, Matt, Ken, and I talked it was a collusion of passionate ideas and ambitions. I soon told Gerry about a new play I had written about the beat poets, called Angels in Underwear. My fascination with Jacques Prevert had led me directly to the beats. Kerouac's own poetry had the innocence of Prevert (as did the undervalued gay beat poet, Frank O'Hara), with its long stream-of-consciousness lines and fantastic, unexpected images. And then, of course, there was Allen Ginsberg, who I found a little too academic for my taste. But I liked Howl— the repetition and profanity, and its shocking debut. (Strange that the guys at my new flat were freaking the hell out of me, but at the same time I fancied the idea of dramatizing poetry in order to shock other people!) Angels in Underwear was the first of many of my plays that incorporated poetry into a text, interweaving it with scenes and monologues to evoke the romance and atmosphere of a place and time. We had to find a place to perform our play. But I had only my part-time job at the Book Cellar, and, later, Classics. Matt and Gerry were working at various odd jobs and Ken was dancing and singing his way through the odd musical — and they were odd, like The Music Man at the Limelight Dinner Theatre, which Ken called "The Slimelight." None of us had any money. Where could we put on our show? Somehow we stumbled upon the Dream Factory. It was a very real place, with a very romantic name, that, for me, it lived up to. It was probably Cynthia Grant who recommended it to me. I had met her when I was putting on my little plays with the Cabaret Company. I think she was running the Helen Gardiner Phelan Theatre when it was called the uc Playhouse — we performed Buddies in Bad Times there. She was a beautiful

19

blonde with a very serious demeanour and a calm, extremely measured manner. Cynthia was the artistic director of a little feminist theatre called Nightwood. She was incredibly supportive and very assertive, smart, and articulate. She was actually starting to get grants from the Ontario government for her theatre company. I couldn't believe it — money from the government to put on a play? Well, her last name was "Grant," so for a while I jokingly put her extraordinary good fortune down to that. The Dream Factory was housed in an old brewery on the north side of Queen Street just west of Sackville. (Now? Condominiums, of course.) The building was gigantic, stretching for a city block. But high up on the fourth floor in the easternmost wing, someone had created an open theatre space, lit by skylights, with high banked shag-carpet-covered boxes for seats. The Dream Factory was run by Vincent Kamberk and Ari Giverts. They were twin forces, physically alike, but aesthetically opposite. Both were curlyhaired, dark, and Semitic-looking. Very Omar Sharif. Ari was a tall, handsome young photographer. Vincent was short, odd-looking, and barrelchested. Both were "artists." Sort of. But their differences epitomized the divisions in the so-called "art" world that were to become so important in my creative life later on. Ari was an artist (after all, he made pictures — pretty sexy ones) but he was also very concerned with turning the Dream Factory into a Warholesque party palace. He had visions of celebrities making the Dream Factory a hip hangout. He was straight, but I think he liked me because he imagined I might add that touch of glamour that only fags are blessed with. (Although I wasn't very glamorous at the time, being overweight, with long curly hair, and a rather messy sense of fashion. But I was homosexual. I had had sex with Kenf)Vmcent, on the other hand, was a poet. He was also openly sexual, and really liked the ladies. He would recite his memorized stream-of-consciousness poems at the slightest provocation. I liked him and his dedication to his art. Vincent and Ari used to have these gigantic bathtub parties at the Dream Factory during which everyone got drenched. It was very '6os. Of course, this was 1979, when bodily fluids weren't considered dangerous, when getting wet was still fun. Ari and Vincent lived at the Dream Factory, and it was interesting visiting them because you never knew who they might be pushing out of bed and onto the cold Queen Street pavement. Actually, it was more like Ari to do that. Vincent picked up people and took care of them as if they were stray dogs. At the

time, to him, I was a bit like a wet, abandoned puppy (like in the lyrics to Buddies in Bad Times}. Anyway, Gerry, Matt Walsh, and I had just signed the incorporation papers for Buddies, and we went to visit Vincent and Ari one day when they were recovering from one of their bathtub parties. We fell in love with their fabulous space. Vincent said that if we didn't have any money, we could put on our play there for free. Free! It really was the Dream Factory. The mandate for the original Buddies in Bad Times was to dramatize poetry onstage. The impetus was my dedication to French surrealist and beat poetry. We rehearsed Angels in Underwear in the evenings after our day jobs. Gerry, being very European-looking, was perfect for the young Ginsberg after we got him some black glasses. Matt would play Kerouac, his idol, and Ken would play Frank O'Flara, the thin, witty, campy beat poet who lived in New York instead of San Francisco. Amanda West-Lewis, who went on to write children's books and marry Tim Wynne-Jones, was in it, too. The blueprint for the play was a lot like those of my other productions for Buddies in those early years. I was afraid of writing a script all on my own, so I kind of hid my writing between the various poets' work. My name only appeared on these early posters as "director" — 1 wouldn't take full credit as writer until the play called Racliguet. The mix of poetry and other scenes seemed to charm people. I remember that Bill Glassco came to see Angels and seemed to enjoy it. He was a good friend of the woman who later became Mart's first wife, Gay Revel 1. I suppose I should tell you something about my complicated relationship with Bill Glassco, who was the artistic director of the Tarragon Theatre in 1979. You see, his opinion meant a lot to me because I had already endured a lengthy professional relationship with him. While I was at York, I wrote a play with the unlikely title of The Rape of the Penguin. Reading that play now, it's easy to see that 1 was still recovering from an adolescent obsession with Liza Minelli's performance as Sally Bowles in Cabaret. The Rape of the Penguin was, in retrospect, a gay man's exploration of his feelings for (and identification with) a wacky, sexual straight woman. It was about a flaky girl named Gilda (based on a university friend, Linda) who lives with two men. One, Orson, is outgoing, while the other is a very shy man who is hiding a dark secret. Gilda

21

is profane, sexual, and funny in a Sally Bowles sort of way. After a student production of the one-act play, I sent a copy to Bill Glassco at the Tarragon. I was shocked by his positive response. A meeting was scheduled. What ensued was approximately three years of meetings with Bill at his home and at the Tarragon Theatre. The experience put me off dramaturgy — and the revision process — forever. Of course, being very young and ambitious, the excitement of having a big artistic director discuss my play with him at his house was almost too much! But, oh, the revisions! The endless talks and revi sions! I did at least five drafts during the three years that I worked on the play with Bill. It expanded from a modest one act to a full-length piece and grew from a simple and, I think, charming comedy to a monolithic comedy-drama. Bill kept asking me about the serious aspects of the play and about Orson's relationship with Gilda. And about the other man's dark secret. "Clarify that!" he would say. I tried. But at a certain point, I began to think that the play was losing any of the charm it originally had, and that something weird was going on between me and my dramaturge. I'm not going to say that Bill Glassco was trying to seduce me (in fact, it might have been better if he did!). No, instead, it seemed that his homosexuality and my homosexuality were the unspoken subject of our discussions. It was as if we were discussing our homosexuality without discussing it at all. After all, we were just talking about the play — but he kept insisting that it had a deep, dark subtext that I needed to explore. I remember one of my fellow students at York cautioning me about Bill Glassco's homosexuality. "That's probably why he's interested in you. He just wants to get in your pants," he said. (Needless to say, this student was quite jealous of my association with Bill.) I want to make it very clear that Bill never came on to me. (And in a whiny, bitter-old-fag sort of way, maybe I'm just bitching about that now.) What I mean is that I needed someone to help propel me out of the closet. And I needed someone to tell me that I was repressing the gay aspects of my writing. Bill told me that I was holding sometkingba.ck, but he didn't — I think because of his own reticence — tell me exactly what. Eventually, we stopped meeting because Bill "didn't have time." He passed on The Rape of the Penguin to Bena Shuster, his assistant. She kept telling me that I had to find my "voice." Did they both know I was gay? If they did, why didn't they just tell me? It would have been traumatic, but helpful.

I have to say that my professional relationship with Glassco was a precursor to a more romantic and sexual relationship that was to happen, with another theatre director, later on. You see, because I was writing plays and starting a theatre company I really needed to get support from someone older and wiser than myself. Someone who was gay and out. Someone I could respect. I've always had a love/hate relationship with older gay men. On the one hand, their wit and wisdom excites me. On the other, I'm frightened of their bitterness and attempts to dominate. Many gay men who grew up in the '405 and 'jos encountered such enormous prejudice that it's hard for them to maintain a healthy self-image. And so often they would try and order me around! I can act pretty boyish (and girlish) at the drop of a hat, so older gay men often think I'm easily dominated. But I'm extremely independent. These contradictions make it difficult for me to have relationships of any kind with older gay guys. So, though I yearned for an older gay man to confide in, it was hard to find an out-of-the-closet gay man who was older and who I could respect. In fact I wasn't even totally out of the closet myself. I mean, I did spin around the room and tell myself I was gay. I had persuaded Ken to have sex with me. And my play Angels in Underwear did have some gay characters. But I wasn't going around telling everybody. All that began to change after Angels in Underwear. I think it was partly due to living in the gay house with Ken. And I began to become closer with Ken than with Matt. Then, eventually, Matt and Gerry left Buddies. Not before we started Rhubarb! though. Along the way, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre had collected another very talented straight writer, Fabian Boutillier. He was almost as interested in French surrealist writers as I was — he introduced me to the work of Jean Tardieu. Fabian was a small, precise man who wrote beautiful, sentimental, poetic little plays that reminded me of the work of Jacques Prevert. I think he's the one who came up with Rhubarb! as a name for our annual festival of experimental works — a festival that survives at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre to this day. Matt, Gerry, Ken, and I had decided to have a festival of new writers, thinking it would give the company more visibility and help us to meet more theatre people, and at the same time give new writers a chance. The first Rhubarb! was called, I'm embarrassed to say,

. 23

New Faces of'79. But we quickly realized the name didn't measure up. We tossed around several ideas and then Fabian, feeling very dadaist, suggested "Rhubarb!" Why? He said that he just liked the absurdity of the word. Of course I got inspired by the idea and configured all sorts of intellectual justifications. "It could mean the noises the bit players make in a big production for crowd noise," I said. We looked it up in the dictionary and saw that it meant "to complain," which seemed appropriate somehow, too. So we had our first Rhubarb! Festival. I don't remember that much about it. I think there were about five plays, staged at the Dream Factory. I remember some of the people involved: Charlotte Freedlander, Amanda West-Lewis, Bruce Dowbiggen, and Beverly Yhap. Bruce went on to be a TV newscaster and Beverly founded Cahoots Theatre Projects, devoted to producing work by people of colour. There was also Maureen White, who was a part of the Nightwood Theatre collective with Cynthia Grant. Maureen also starred in Life Without Arnold, an early comedy of mine about a straight guy who couldn't get laid. Another detail about that first Rhubarb! at the Dream Factory: about the same time, Richard Rose and his newly formed Necessary Angel Theatre were performing a modern version of a Greek tragedy there, too. Matt and Gerry leaving the company was relatively traumatic for me. Why did they go? Well, I have to admit that I still think their sudden disappearance had something to do with my equally sudden conversion. Neither of them said that, and I know that both deny it to this day. At the time, Matt told me that Gay Revell just didn't think Buddies was going to have much of a future. And he was getting very serious about acting, which meant that he didn't have time to run a theatre company. Gerry was, of course, primarily interested in film. So, you could attribute their departure to "other interests." But I'm afraid I can't completely discount homophobia. The reason I say this is that Matt and Gerry weren't the only people who left me; I lost every single straight friend I had. The only person who stayed, and who is still my friend today, is Sally Clark, When I look back on it now I wonder how I did it. Why did I persevere? There I was, nearly 30 years old, just out of the closet, just out of school. I didn't have any money. I had no mentor, no older, wiser, more established person to lean on. My best friends had abandoned me (most likely because I was gay) and the little theatre company we had started together. Suddenly

Buddies in Bad Times Theatre was "my" company, and no one in Toronto seemed to have any interest in what I was doing. I took Paris Spleen to Clarke Rogers at Theatre Passe Muraille just before we did Angels in Underwear. Paris Spleen was based on Baudelaire's short stories, and had a short run, with Ken playing Baudelaire, upstairs at the Factory Theatre on Adelaide Street before we formed Buddies. Clarke asked me, "Why would you want to write a play about that?" I sent all my early plays to artistic directors around town, and, outside of the abortive dramaturgical fiasco with Bill Glassco, no one seemed interested in my work. I did have a blossoming friendship with the ambitious and knowledgeable Cynthia Grant, but she was still a no-account kid like me. Basically, I was doing it alone. I remember one specific dark night of the soul. I think it was during the rehearsals for Angels in Underwear. While I was trying to figure out what to do the next day in rehearsal, I found myself having an anxiety attack. Here I am, I thought, trying to motivate a bunch of actors to work on a play that hardly anybody's going to see! On top of that, the actors were working for free (none of us were paid until we started to receive government grants). Suddenly the actors terrified me. Who was / to tell them what to do? What authority did I have? As Noel Coward said, actors only have one important motivation: their paycheques. I was a nobody, doing a play about a bunch of bisexual beat poets at the Dream Factory. Why should the actors listen to me? Was I actually talented? What right did I have to call myself a playwright? Wasn't I just a fraud? I was frozen with fear. I didn't think that I could face my cast. What got me through? Well, I simply blocked out all the fear. I thought, "If you give in to the fear, then that's it. You'll have to stop. You won't be able to face them. You'll just run away and your theatre career will be over." It sounds incredibly corny to say it, but / had a dream. A dream that started many years earlier in my backyard as I ordered around the little kids in the neighbourhood, and then continued with the epiphany while I was playing the cello in a high-school production of Annie Get Your Gun. In the late '705 there was a slight possibility that the dream might become reality. I thought to myself, "You love playwrighting, you love directing. If you block out the fear, and concentrate on the joy of working, then everything will be okay." This was my work, and I loved it. Since that day, whenever I become afraid — and it's happened often

25

— I've simply blocked it out. It's an either/or situation. Either soldiet on and ignore it, or just give up everything. I always chose to go on. Many years later — just before I left Buddies in 1997 — I came to a significant realization with my therapist. I told her about all my achievements at Buddies, and wept unabashedly. She was a practitioner of "narrative" therapy, which holds that people should be in charge of creating their own "stories." In other words, if a person narrates their own life, rather than letting others do it for them, they have a better chance at happiness. I realized that in all my years at Buddies, I had thought of myself as the hero of my own life. How did I manage to make myself my own hero? I don't know if it was the early encouragement I received from my parents, or supportive teachers — or just a bit of Ayn Rand still rattling around in my head — but from the time I started Buddies, it was true. And that vision kept me going. But, interestingly enough, I was still very shy in two areas. I was still pretty much of a boob as far as love and sex were concerned — Ken was my only conquest. And I still didn't have the courage to call myself a writer on publicity material. The posters always read "directed by Sky Gilbert," even though I had written all of the prose in the early poetic productions, because I wasn't brave enough yet to display my dream to the world. What if I wasn't the great writer I imagined myself to be? Then something happened. After Matt and Gerry left, I became Buddies, and Buddies became me. I invested everything I had in this little company — which was really just myself, the incorporation papers, and some wild theatrical fantasies. I found courage by identifying with the company; it was a kind of camouflage for my dream of being a writer. This early personal identification with Buddies was to have huge ramifications in the future. The company's next production was Art/Rat. I had moved from the beats to someone who might be considered a contemporary beat — Patti Smith. I was in love with Smith's poetry. She was the perennial outsider weed who grew into an awkward adult flower. I loved the anti-heroes who obsessed her: the alien, the hardhearted abstract expressionist, the rock star, and the nearsighted nerd girl. I wanted to bring these characters and her outcast sensibility to life. And I wanted to hear actors recite her profane, orgiastic poems. Punk rock was still popular, so we billed Art/Rat as a punk musical

(there wasn't much actual rock 'n' roll in the show; the music arose mostly from the rhythms of chanting her poetry). It was a series of scenes and monologues written by myself, interpolated with Smiths poetry. Ken McDougall starred along with Mary Hawkins — an intense, hauntingly beautiful, gawky girl who almost seemed to be Patti Smith herself. Ken choreographed and Matt Walsh came back to do a late-night performance of monologues by Jack Kerouac just to put Smith in the beat context. We performed the piece at Cinema Lumiere (now a paint store) at College and Spadina, right around the corner from where Ken and I lived. I felt alone after losing Gerry and Matt. And although in some ways I was ready to face the challenges myself, I was eager to find new artistic compatriots. Cynthia Grant and the other Nightwood Theatre women (Maureen White, Kim Renders, and Mary Vingoe) quickly became those theatre pals. Cynthia had been coming to see my work and I had been going to see hers, and Nightwood's work opened up a new world for me; Cynthia was much more knowledgeable about contemporary avant-garde theatre influences than I was. It's true that my background at York was completely avant-garde. The chairman, Robert Benedetti, wouldn't allow acting students like myself to perform musicals. (My lighthearted work at the York Cabaret was frowned upon.) And York brought a whole bunch of experimental dance companies up to the campus from New York City. I remember particularly the James (no, not Merce) Cunningham Dance Company because the dancers would suddenly start talking and it would seem that we were involved in a realistic family drama, except that they were still dancing. I remember seeing Joseph Chaiken and being very impressed by the physical ensemble work (unlike James Cunningham, who was very campy, Chaiken didn't seem to have a sense of humour). But by 1980, these influences were old hat — very '705. The newer New York City theatre companies were the Wooster Group and Richard Foreman's Ontological Hysterical Theater. Cynthia had been to New York City to see the Wooster Group and was a big fan of Elizabeth LeCompte. I saw two productions by the Wooster Group much later. I remember a fantastic surrealistic monologue by Lee Breuer. It involved an excruciatingly funny telephone conversation and a breathtaking moment when a curtain behind him opened to reveal a window and a real city street. But before I could see the Wooster Group for myself, I got most of my new ideas about avant-garde

17

theatre from Cynthia and her close associate Richard Shoichet (his company was called AKA Performance Arts). They were always talking about "the image," about how theatre was all about images. This was very important for me, because I'm a lover of words. I had always approached theatre from a literary standpoint. My theatrical needs, up until I met Cynthia and Richard, were simple: tell a. story. My plays at that time were a bunch of little collected stories arranged around poetry. And the stories always had to be funny, smart, and dirty. I couldn't see any point in art that wasn't funny, smart, and dirty, my three favourite things. But I didn't think visually. As I worked on Art/Rat, and hung out more with Cynthia and Richard, I began to see that theatre should be made up of images, and that sometimes the images could speak more loudly than words. I began, in fact, to think that there was something dishonest or just plain wasteful about plays that didn't take advantage of the specific aspects of the theatrical medium. Until I started hanging out with Cynthia and Richard, I wrote radio plays. My new friends also made me think about breaking up narrative. And about having no narrative at all. In a way I had already discovered this idea, because, after all, poetry was the organizing factor in my plays, not plot. But then Nightwood created a very beautiful play about Alex Colville, the Canadian painter. The piece was based on a series of images from his paintings. (This play gave me the idea for one I wrote a few years later based on the paintings of David Hockney, called Life Without Muscles?) The language o. this work was pure visual poetry. Cynthia, Richard, and I decided that we could reduce our theatrical expenditures considerably if we rented a space together. We figured that if we banded together we might be able to get grant money to support our endeavours. Cynthia was the one who introduced me to the whole grant system. I was suspicious of government help, but Cynthia had some long talks with me. She explained to me a principle that today is self-evident. You see, with the lingering American Ayn Rand free-enterprise model rolling around in my brain, I still believed that my work should have to prove itself in the marketplace. I thought quality work would find its reward in large audiences, and hence large box office returns. Cynthia explained to me that my work, though of quality, was challenging. And that if I wanted to continue to produce work that challenged audiences, I should take advantage of the government funding that was available to help me when my experimental

ideas moved ahead of the audience's ability to accommodate them. I was naive; unaware that in the late 'yos most Canadian theatres were still mounting commercial productions of proven American hits or plays by an already established group of Canadian playwrights. I was trying to create new work that many might consider controversial and experimental — this was unusual and deserved support. Her reasoning made sense and I owe a lot to Cynthia for helping me see that. We decided to ask Richard Rose and his Necessary Angel Company to join us, as well as Thom Sokoloski and Theatre Autumn Leaf. Thorn was working with some very interesting actors: Mark Christmann and Dean Gilmour, who had trained with LeCoq in Paris. The six companies decided to move in together and call ourselves the Theatre Centre. We found a space that was already being considered by Richard Nieoc/ym of Actor's Lab, on the southeast corner of Broadview and Danforth on the third floor above a Greek disco. The main thing we had in common was the shared space, but between Cynthia, Richard Shoichet, and I especially there was a shared sense of the avant-garde as well. Richard Rose and Thom Sokoloski were rethinking the classics. Nieoczym had been exploring Grotowski-based work for years. (The Polish director Grotowski was certainly an icon for theatre students when I was at York, he preached asceticism and a physical theatre that was almost religious in its intensity. So did Nieoczym. But he was from another generation, and for that reason was a bit of an outsider to our group. He didn't remain part of the Theatre Centre for long.) Then, through Cynthia, I met the very first love of my life. Cynthia invited me to a party at Mike Chapman's house. Mike and Steven MacKay, both avant-garde musicians, had a little synthesizer band called Late Capitalism and were smart and supportive as hell. (They later did the soundscape for Lana Turner Has Collapsed!) I was very nervous, because I hadn't done much partying when I was straight. Imagine, a real theatre party, where I would have a chance to meet other contemporary artist types! And when I caught sight of Glenn, I was mesmerized. He was a very handsome ij-yearold boy from Vancouver who was staying with Mike and his girlfriend. Tall and slender, with a mass of dark curly hair; to me, he looked like a Greek god. On top of that he was witty and articulate. And he deigned to talk to me. That did it — I was madly in love. Glenn was my idol. I was obsessed with him. I asked a mutual girlfriend

29

to find out if he would consider going out with me. I put it in a very selfdeprecating way, like "He probably wouldn't want to go out with me, would he?" I had a very bad body image. I had always been the fat little kid. I didn't think I was a very attractive homosexual, (Look at the "before and after" pictures of me. You can see that after coming out I lost weight and sported a more stylish haircut. I remember Sally asking, "What is it about turning gay that makes men suddenly turn attractive?" I didn't tell her this, but it's a necessity!) In those old photos I look very hot. But I had no idea! I thought Glenn was a perfect boy and I was an undeserving troll. Well, he did want to go out with me, and one thing led to another and we started an affair. I was in heaven. I remember thinking, "This is what love songs are all about." No, honestly, before Glenn, when I heard love songs on the radio, I tried to conjure up images of girls. But it didn't work. I couldn't understand why all the guys singing those love songs would go on and on about girls. It seemed kind of ridiculous. But when I realized the girls in those songs were Glenn, it all made sense. I wrote him hundreds of letters and he wrote back — I still have them. We wrote poems for each other. Mine were all about Glenn's beauty. Glenn's were about his ry-year-old life. His poems really were quite good. I think I was an early influence on his career — he went on to be a writer. (These days he publishes his gay stories under a pseudonym and lives with his long-term lover in Vancouver.) Somehow, I had found a guy with the same caustic, thoughtful, chatty view of the world, and he was only 17. But Glenn always said that he wasn't in love with me, although now and then he'd give me a hint that he was bluffing. And of course he didn't even live in Toronto. He was from Vancouver — and he was ready to set out on a trip to Europe! When he moved back to Vancouver I was very wounded. But I wrote furiously about him, about the hurt. He was my perfect boy, the one I came out of the closet for. Why couldn't he leave his parents in Vancouver, skip the trip to Europe, and move in with me? I wrote shelfloads of poems about Glenn. (One, "Mass in B-Flat," is in my book Digressions of a Naked Party Girl.) I also wrote a play about my feelings for Glenn, based on Frank O'Hara's poetry. I called it Lana Turner Has Collapsed! It was another collection of

poems and monologues, and again I did not credit myself as writer. Ostensibly it's the story of Frank O'Hara's life, but the play's narrative is broken up. One of its key elements is Frank's love for a boy he idolizes and who rejects him (the boy was based on Glenn, of course!). It starred Ken McDougall as Frank O'Hara, a role I wrote for him. With this Buddies production, two things changed. First, Cynthia suggested that I try to get a grant from Theatre Passe Muraille; I had a chat with Paul Thompson and they gave us $3,000 for "seed money." Secondly, this was my first "gay" production. By that I mean that this was my first production to have the word "gay" on the poster. It simply said "directed by Sky Gilbert with poetry by gay author Frank O'Hara." I thought it was very bold. We decided to be very trendy with Lana, and had a party to record witty, relevant chatter for background noise for one of the scenes in the play. We thought we were being very clever. It was my first big gay party. I had always fantasized about being popular, being a party person. But I wasn't really. Inside I was the nerd who'd been rejected by Glenn. But with Cynthia and Ken and the two musicians to support me, we went ahead and had a huge event at the fabulous Nylons flat on Spadina. We sent out invitations that said "Artparty." There was a required '6os American reading list, and certain '6os visual artists were suggested as topics for discussion. High on the list were Truman Capote, William DeKooning, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Roland Barthes. Straight writers like Faulkner and Hemingway were frowned upon as subjects. Mike and Steve went around with microphones and taped people's conversations. It was a great mix of people, gay and straight, all young and very arty. Punk was the thing; everyone was dressed punky. I was sporting a grey sports jacket, a colourful scarf (my gay accessory), and pointy cowboy boots. It was fun, rushing upstairs and down to fill people's drinks, and waiting to see who would climb up into the loft and end up fooling around. I don't remember much else — except that I wished Glenn was there. But strange things came out of that party. Someone attended who would have an incredible impact on my life — David Roche. Roche was a sparkling young fag about town and he also wrote for the Body Politic, Toronto's gay and lesbian liberation magazine. The Body Politic collective was a closed shop to me; they had all been out and political for years. I felt like a real outsider, an interloper, because I had come out so late.

31

I envied David because he was right in the centre of the Body Politic group. We invited him to our little soiree, and I guess the party impressed him. Just think: people rolling around in the loft bed while others discussed Claude Levi-Strauss below — all of it being recorded by Mike and Steve for our play. It must have seemed pretty sexual and intellectual at the same time. After the party, David wrote an article about me in which he described the whole event. This article established, for me, a reputation that I've never quite been able to live up to. It suggested that I was doing a lot of drugs and that I was constantly surrounded by beautiful boys who desperately wanted to fuck me. Actually, nothing could have been further from the truth. I was just beginning to experiment with smoking dope, and I was too broken up about Glenn to seduce anyone. I know that David meant well. And the article certainly served the purpose of publicizing me and the play. But, probably because there were so few other openly gay artists in the city, I found myself, at 28, suddenly being rocketed into the position of role model for the gay and lesbian community. The truth? I was almost as ignorant about that community as a straight person. It made life awkward at times. While I was recovering from Glenn, I had a little fling with Charles Murdoch, another talented young director about town. I remember going to a party with him. Someone was doing coke. Charles was very shocked when he discovered that I didn't want any. I asked him why he would assume that I did drugs. "Oh, I just figured, after everything I'd read about you, that you would," he said. I think he was relieved to find out that my reputation was undeserved. Frankly, I had no idea what I was doing — in the gay department, or the sex department, or the drugs department. David should have known that, since I'd even awkwardly come on to him! (He refused me very nicely, of course.) Lana Turner Has Collapsed!, an homage to the New York City art scene of the '6os and to the charm and sadness in the poems of Frank O'Hara, proved to be a great success. Bill Zaget and Ken McDougall played different parts of Frank. Ken was his soul. At the end of the play he did a dance with a piece of paper. A piece of paper. It was very beautiful. I remember a wonderful moment in the play when Ken just climbed all over Micah Barnes — who was over six feet tall and a very handsome 19-year-old at the time. It was one of the amazing dancy things that Ken could do with his acting. I remember two other interesting things about the production. One was that Peter

Caldwell, a friend and sometime lover of Ken's, said to me, "You know, it's the first time I've ever gone to see a play and felt comfortable about holding my boyfriend's hand." That really meant a lot to me; it seemed to be what Buddies was all about. Also, Spalding Gray was at the Theatre Centre around that time. Before he became so famous for his monologue Swimming to Cambodia, he was just another New York City performance artist, and Cynthia had seen him at the Performing Garage and snagged him for the Theatre Centre. Anyway, for some reason he came to see Lana, and seemed to enjoy it. One of my girlfriends at the time, Barbara Wright, really wanted to sleep with him. Somehow, through Cynthia, she wangled a date to come and see my show. I knew she was there with him, so the next day I called her to see if she had gotten lucky. "Oh yes," she said. "Your play made him feel very sexually insecure. He said that he was starting to question his sexuality. So I thought it was my job to reassure him that he was a real man. A real heterosexual." I thought that was very funny. My play was getting straights laid as well as gays. I made a little pact with Barbara: she could bring famous straight writers to my plays and then they would get insecure about their sexuality, and then she could fuck them so they could prove their manliness. I think we only tried it on one other straight writer, Christopher Dewdney, a couple of years later. I can't remember if it worked. After the play was over, I began obsessing about Glenn again. I used his disappearance as an excuse to discover bathhouses. I quickly became addicted. If you wonder how that could happen, think of what it must have been like for me to be in the closet for almost 30 years — only to suddenly win my heart's desire and then have him flee to Europe! Sometimes it was a very clear cause-and-effect thing. So, in order not to go crazy thinking about Glenn, I'd go to the baths. At first I couldn't believe that such places actually existed. They just didn't seem real. You walk in, get a towel, purchase a locker or room and after that it's just like a sexual grocery store. Bathhouses became such a habit that even today I have to control the urge to drop in every day. I feel happy there, even if I'm not getting laid. It's a totally gay environment. And totally sexual. It's a world where perverts hang out — by perverts I mean all those who are openly and proudly fascinated with sex. And bathhouse culture is a real society. The people who frequent them are not just neurotic closet cases. I have

33

sex with the same people over and over again at the baths, sometimes as regularly as every couple of months. And old friends turn up there, so it's not just a sexual scene, but a social one, too. There are two myths about the baths. First, that only sleazy old men go there. This couldn't possibly be true, or else I would never go — my taste runs to the young and beautiful and restless! You will meet a lot of happy, sleazy men, however, both young and old. The second myth is that only the beautiful boys get laid. Wrong! Sex is very democratic. There's always something for everyone. I remember being very attracted to a dwarf once, overcoming my apprehensions, and having a wild time. (And he wasn't a troll. He was a very cute dwarf.?Actually, lots of short men have a thing for me because I'm big. I met a jockey once, when I was in drag, and we had an amazing time. Short guys are always trying to prove something, which makes them a lot of fun.) The main thing I've learned at the baths is this: tall, skinny men with receding chins always have gigantic pricks! I've learned a lot of other things, too. Over the years I've had many bathhouse adventures, two of which took place at The Romans, a lovely old bathhouse on Bay Street. (Condos now, too.) The Romans was famous for its campy and quaint pretensions. There was a palatial whirlpool on the second floor next to a white statue. The statue was pure kitsch. It recalled Michelangelo's David, only the boy was wearing a leather jacket and jeans. The Romans reminded me of American Model Guild porn movies of the '505 because the setting was so lush, but the activities were so, well, basic. The unspoken etiquette at the baths is that if you're lying in your room, you're supposed to indicate subtly whether you're interested in having sex, and how. If you lie on your front with your ass in the air, well, I think its pretty obvious what that means. If you stand up and wave your cock around, it means you want a blowjob. And if you sit on the bed and smile, like I try to do, it means you're just, well, up for a good time. Strangers come by your room and you can indicate interest in several ways. You can pull off your towel and reveal your goodies, you can smile, or even wave, or you can start jerking off. When you're not interested, you can show it discreetly: you can cover yourself up, or look away, or look down. One night a particularly unattractive guy cruised by my room (unattractive to me — he may very well have been somebody else's peachy apple).

Anyway, I tried to subtly let him know I wasn't interested, but it didn't work. I did everything. I covered myself, I looked down, I looked away, I even covered my eyes and shook my head "No." But he continued to lurk around my door. I found it very frustrating. While lying on the bed I could reach the door with my foot, so one time when he came around I stretched out my foot and slammed the door shut right in his face. Now, I never do that. I felt very ashamed afterwards. But he was being very pushy and not getting the subtle signals. Anyway, I waited for a good ten minutes and, finally, after I'd gotten over my guilt for rejecting him so brutally, I decided to open the door again. Unbelievably he was standing there, staring at me. And boy, was he mad. He said, "I'll get you for this. Don't you worry. I'll never forget this. Someday, I'll get you. You'll be standing in some bar having a drink, having a good time, and I'll get you. When you least expect it, I'll be there." And then he marched off. Jesus. I'll never forget the curse of that fat old guy in the towel. (I won't describe him in any more detail for fear that he'll read this and come after me.) The second thing that happened at The Romans was that I almost slept with Rudolph Nureyev. I know that sounds hard to believe, but it's true. One night I was lying in my room and this guy started cruising me. He wasn't really my type, which is young and slender. A short, Ukrainian-looking guy, he had lots of muscles, but other than that he looked just sort of ethnic. He kept coming by so I finally got a good look at him. I thought, "Oh my God, it's Rudolph Nureyev!" In my mind I put one of those Russian fur hats on his head and, sure enough, it looked just like him. For a minute or two, I fantasized about having sex with him. But the more I fantasized the more uncomfortable I became. I thought that if I had sex with him, all the time I'd be thinking, "Oh my God, I'm having sex with Rudolph Nureyev!" which for sure would make me lose my erection. So I did the subtle gesture to him that indicated 1 wasn't interested. To make sure that he wasn't just some run-of-the-mill ethnic-looking guy and not Nureyev, on my way out I asked the boy at the counter, "Am I going crazy, or was Rudolph Nureyev here tonight?" "Yes," the boy said, "he was." I've never forgiven myself for being such a chickenshit. Erection or no erection, I certainly could have managed. And think of the stories I could have told my grandchildren! Finally, I'll never forget one afternoon when I walked out of The

35

Romans to find one of Toronto's most famous and caustic lesbian stand-up comics, Sheila Gostick, standing there. She asked, "Howya doin?" "Great," I said. "Did you have a nice time at the spa? she asked. It was just the way she said it. Very la-de-da, as if it were the most elegant place in the world. "The spaaaaa, "she said again. "Yes," I said. "I had a lovely time." "I'll bet you did." And then she rode off on her bike. I'm sure she was somewhat jealous. Lesbians are always saying that they wish they had bathhouses. I feel sorry for them (and straight people, too) that they don't. It's a lot harder to start a bathhouse for lesbians because women have very different issues around safety than men do, but I guarantee that if lesbian bathhouses were to catch on, they'd make a lot of money. Back then I didn't think of myself as promiscuous, or as a bathhouse "queen." I was just getting over Glenn, and the bathhouse was my crutch. At the time, it was fun. I used to go a couple of times a week. Later on, I would go a lot more. My bathhouse visits became obsessive and, I think, out of control. But we're not there yet. Around this time I also had my first S/M experience. At the "Artparty" I met a very strange person. I was having a discussion with Cynthia Grant when a weird guy suddenly grabbed hold of a hanging lamp in the kitchen and aimed it at our heads, back and forth, like a searchlight. It was very unnerving. He pretended that it was a TV interview and that swinging the light was part of accentuating the "performativity" of our talk. I remember thinking that the guy was an asshole and kind of scary. I asked Cynthia who he was, and she told me his name. "But who is he?" I asked. "Oh, he's a very talented musician," she said. I didn't think much of the incident. I figured I would be just as happy never to see the nutbar again. But I did. When Lana Turner Has Collapsed! had closed and I was working on another play (yet another piece about French surrealist poets called The Piano of Death), I was lonely and mooning over Glenn. So I decided to go to a University of Toronto gay gathering. I was very nervous about the whole

thing. Then I noticed a guy in a cornet nursing a beer and staring at me. I thought he was sort of cute and so I walked over and said, "Hi." It turned out to be the musician. I won't go into the details, but let's just say that we ended up at his apartment having what was my first experience of s/M sexual play. We didn't really have sex — whatever that means. But we fooled around a lot. I had the feeling it was an intellectual/sexual experience for him. He also made it very clear that he admired my work. The whole thing seemed to be about that admiration, if you can imagine. In a way, it was my first (and one of my few) sexual encounters with a "fan." I was very conflicted about what happened and kind of put it away somewhere in the back of my brain. I was excited by the stuff we did, but I also felt very guilty. I felt I was being bad and betraying Glenn by having so much fun. Also, it wasn't a "love" thing — it was just a sexual experiment. An experiment, strangely enough, with someone who was obsessed by my work. I think it was an experiment for the musician, too. As you can see, my life was changing radically. Everything happening at once. Suddenly I had a gay life. I was in love with someone (who wasn't there, but that was sort of typical, too). I had discovered the baths and S/M. And I was also experimenting with marijuana. My work was bursting onto the theatre scene. I'd become a minor celebrity. That was the weirdest part. It seemed that as soon as I lost all my friends (except for Sally) after coming out, I had suddenly conscripted a whole new bunch, mostly actors, writers, and directors. I was evolving. The review of Lana Turner Has Collapsed! \r\ the Globe and Mail was one of my first reviews in a major paper. The reviewer, Ray Conlogue, took the play seriously, but suggested that I needed a designer. That made sense, because I had designed the play myself, and I was just learning the importance of "the image." Perhaps I should take a moment here to talk about the critics. I've dreaded bringing them up. I won't say that I have a love/hate relationship with them because that would be a lie. I hate them. I suppose that over the years the hate has turned to passionate disregard.

assg

I don't read critics anymore — unless they rave. I know that's hypocritical. But why bother? Most of the time their opinion is just a matter of taste. But let me say this about critics — and you're going to think I'm just being nasty or sarcastic, but I'm not — most of them are not very attractive people. Most critics, if you get a close look at them (and they're careful not to give you that close look, if they can help it), are nerds. The kind of kids you used to make fun of at school. The kind of kids who have no fashion sense when they're teenagers. And most of all, the kind of adults who just can't seem to get laid. A lot of critics use their position to try and improve their pitiful sex lives, or, at the very least, their social lives. I've never understood that. I've always been very suspicious of anyone who I thought might be fucking me to get somewhere. I just don't find that a turn-on. From the very beginning of Buddies, I made a pact with myself never to sleep with any of the actors who worked for the company. And I've kept that promise. It wasn't hard. Maybe that's why the baths have always been tempting to me; since names are so rarely exchanged, I'm always sure that the person I'm having sex with isn't trying to get a job. But back to the critics. Generally they're sad, unattractive people. Occasionally they are smart. And, in the case of the mainstream critics I've had to deal with for almost 20 years, they're all straight. And almost all straight men. Think about it. The Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star had enormous power over Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from the very beginning. Why so much? Because we were poor. It's all about economics, really. (Isn't everything?) We couldn't afford much advertising, and every time we got a review in the paper, we got a kind of visibility we could never buy. So the reviews were very important. During my zo-year career I had to deal with six major critics: Henry Mietkiewicz, Gina Mallet, Robert Crew, and Vit Wagner at the Toronto Star, and Ray Conlogue and Kate Taylor at the Globe and Mail. That's it. Those people, for the most part, decided whether anyone would hear about the plays at Buddies, and whether or not they would come. You can say that people are pretty independent and that they don't listen to critics, but I don't think that's entirely true. Especially when it comes to work that is not typical or mainstream. People have no idea what they're getting into, and they look to a critic to guide them. Sure, there may be a small hard-core group of fans for avant-garde work, but they don't pay the bills, even when you get grants.

How did the critics handle my plays and, later, the work of other queer artists at Buddies? In a very interesting, tactical way. And — call me a conspiracy theorist — in a way that made sure our work would never threaten the status quo. You see, when an artist writes from his or her "culture" — whether it's gay or straight, black or blue, Jewish or Arab — that position can have its advantages and disadvantages. For instance, when I was writing Luna Turner Has Collapsed! I got a lot of attention for my work (from people like David Roche and Ray Conlogue), at least partially because I was one of the only out gay theatre artists in Toronto. (There had only really been the courageous John Herbert, author of Fortune and Men's Byes before me. Actually, that's not completely true. Larry Fineberg and John Palmer are gay playwrights who had great success at Toronto Free Theatre and Factory Theatre in the 'yos. But the content of their work was not consistently gay, and the press rarely singled them out as queer. At the time, though, I'm sure it wasn't normal to see the word "gay" in the mainstream entertainment press.) Other gay writers say that they are writers first and queers second, that they don't feel the need for "labels." On the other hand, many people have accused me of positioning my work as "gay" in order to get attention. But I think that anyone who openly talks about writing from a minority position is doing a brave thing. The reason I'm willing to call myself a gay writer is that it's honest. I happen to be gay, and a writer. And it's honest in another sense; I'm interested in writing about gay subjects. People (critics, too) have spent a lot of time urging me to write about less controversial topics. When people used to ask Rachmaninoff why he was a composer, he would say, "Because I must. Because it's as natural as breathing." And I'd have to say the same thing about gay subjects. Not every gay or lesbian person has to write about gay or lesbian subjects to be a good writer or a good gay and lesbian person. But I do. I find it difficult and certainly not very rewarding to write about other topics. Unfortunately, the imagined glamour, the imagined advantage of writing from an openly gay position is simply that: a figment. What happened to me, and many other writers at Buddies, is that even though the work might get attention at first, the reviewers quickly, and very subtly, revealed their prejudices. Reviewers generally enjoyed showing off their tolerance and displaying their understanding of difficult, extreme subject matter. But as the romance

39

of that tolerance wore off, they would get impatient. As Buddies became more successful, the mainstream critics became irritable. It's one thing for Ray Conlogue to discover a little play in some shithole performance space on Danforth Avenue in 1979 and parade his tolerance for gay work. It's quite another for Kate Taylor to take Moynan King's lesbian feminist play Bathory seriously when it's performed in a 35O-seat theatre with a history of government funding in 1995. Suddenly, tolerance turns to contempt. I think it corresponds completely to present-day impatience with affirmative action. It's all very nice to give black people jobs, isn't it, until they're in line for the managerial positions we want? But I'm getting ahead of myself again. Let's just say diat the early positive critical response to my work (and I did get raves) was always in a certain context. I was always praised condescendingly — critics complimented how I was, surprisingly, "rising above" my subject matter. How I was — for the first time, in their view — managing somehow to make homosexual subject matter watchable. So you can see why that might be both a compliment and a slap in the face. When I did venture out of the arena of gay playwrighting, I was told in no uncertain terms that it was not permissible for me to do so. When I adapted Anything Goes at the Shaw Festival, Robert Crew made it very clear in his scathing review that my campy, queer attitudes had no place at that venerable institution. When I wrote a play called Yankees at York (commissioned by Necessary Angel Theatre), Ray Conlogue said that when I wasn't writing about gay subject matter I had "the intellectual scope of a field mouse." On the odier hand, critics openly encouraged me to direct straight plays. When I directed Treatment, a British play about punks and violence, in the mid-'8os, Vit Wagner of the Star pondered why I didn't direct more of this type of wonderful, accessible fare instead of my own work. It was obvious to me that since I showed talent for theatre, the critics could not dismiss me. But they could try and guide that talent into a less gay area — directing, and not writing. Later, my relationship with the critics was also complicated by the fact that, as I became more known as a spokesperson about gay issues, I was asked to be a gay pundit on television and in print. And of course, today (after leaving Buddies), I often work as a journalist. In these situations, I have often revelled in the opportunity to criticize the critics. And let me tell you, though critics can be absolutely merciless in their own writing, they are

utterly thin-skinned when you criticize them. They will criticize your dick size or your flabby breasts onstage, but if you dare criticize them back, in print or on radio or TV, they get all weepy and sensitive. Once, on TV, I called Vit Wagner's review of my play Ban This Show stupid. He wrote me a very hurt letter and never forgave me. I once wrote an article suggesting that Kate Taylor had been cruel to my friend playwright Sally Clark; soon after that Taylor walked out of my play Garden Variations (which was nominated for three Doras), and trashed The Emotionalists (nominated for a Dora as best play). Critiquing the critics (it's lots of fun!) is not to be confused with the practice of writing letters to the editor about critics. Never do that. That's just playing their game. It means the critics are being read, and selling newspapers. If you're going to criticize critics, you have to do it in another forum, on ground that is their competition. My views on the critics would not be complete without mentioning Robert Wallace. Others have called him a critic, and he has worked for radio in that capacity. But Wallace is actually a playwright, academic, and cultural theorist who has written extensively about my work. He edited the first collection of my plays, This Unknown Flesh. In fact, Bob Wallace was one of the first people to acknowledge my writing. Before he published Capote at Yaddo (my play about Truman Capote) in the collection Making/Out (1992), I'd only seen one play into print: The Dressing Gown in 1989. (And I had to fight to get the Playwright's Union of Canada to publish that. For five years they rejected it, then, after I begged, pleaded, cajoled, and wrote nasty letters, they finally gave in. Why the resistance? I think it's because the work was both gay and sexual. I say that because PUC used to send my plays all over the country for opinions, and when I nagged them, they made the mistake of sending me the readers' reports. The reports said things like "I'm disgusted by this garbage.") No, Robert Wallace has been a true dramaturge for my work, and for many other artists at Buddies. He's brave enough to support queer art. His cogent analysis and encouragement behind the scenes has been a great support to myself, and others, during even the "baddest" of times. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank him. But, because he doesn't regularly write for the papers, I refuse to call him a critic. Anyway, enough about critics. They just happen to be thin-skinned, sad, ugly — quite often stupid — and tolerantly intolerant, okay?

>;«£

After the Globe and Mail review, I decided to start working with a designer.hgert Again, I made the connection through Cynthia Grant. (Writing this, I realize how many early career opportunities I owe to her!) Patsy Lang, who had designed plays for Nightwood Theatre, became my best friend and theatrical collaborator. How can I describe Patsy? Well, her energy's precisely the opposite of mine. I'm excitable, passionate, impatient, and intense. Patsy's low-key (sometimes to the point of somnambulance) and has the patience of Job. At the time she dressed like a hippie chick. (This was 1980, when that was still somewhat in fashion.) In common, though, we had our artistic interests and a sense of humour. After Lana Turner Has Collapsed''Ken and I had one of our fights. We had become bitchy but affectionate fag sisters, and quite often we couldn't agree on anything theatrical. Ken was very irritated by my lack of attention to the technical details of theatre. It really irked him during Lana. The scenario went something like diis. We fought. I told him I knew exactly what I was doing — and that he should keep his nose out of my directing. Then, of course, I promptly took his advice and formed an alliance with a designer who could solve a lot of the technical details Ken had criticized me for ignoring. Which means I rejected Ken for criticizing me and then promptly went out and followed his admonitions to the letter. What can I say? Like anybody, I guess, I find it hard sometimes to hear the truth from my friends. Of course, Ken later went on to be a wonderful director; maybe this fight was part of him discovering his own voice as an artist. Our estrangement didn't last too long, when you look at the big picture — I knew Ken for almost 15 years; our fight lasted less than 12 months. Patsy temporarily replaced Ken as my artistic associate. Although she had no formal position at Buddies, she was effectively Buddies' designer in residence. Literally. You see, we moved in together in a flat on Robert Street just south of Harbord. I didn't want to live with Ken after our fight. But also, my life was becoming so gay that I didn't feel I needed the support of a gay household. I thought that instead I needed a little love and attention — which Patsy always gave me. I have a very clear image of going to buy bagels with Micah Barnes the

day we moved in. I remember being overjoyed that we could shop for bagels and real cream cheese so close by, at the Harbord Bakery. We lived right behind what was then Henry Morgentaler's abortion clinic. We used to have fun watching the strange monsters from Northern Ontario carrying signs and harassing the poor women going in for abortions. It was horrifying, really, because the anti-abortionists were like creatures from another planet. Watching them every day, it became clear that they were very sad people. Basically, the fundamentalists would ship in a new geek every week to stand in the alley behind the clinic. The men were dressed in suits, the women in flowered dresses and sweaters that only grandmas wear. But they were often young. Usually diey were clutching Bibles. The poor girls wanting abortions would try and sneak up the alley to the back entrance, but a "Christian" would soon accost them and try to engage them in an intense argument about morality. I watched the dumbshow from my bedroom window. When the girl had escaped into the clinic for her abortion, the religious freaks would continue praying and talking to themselves. The clinic was burned down eventually; I'm sure one of the fanatics did it. I've always been pro-choice and pro-feminism. I don't call myself a male feminist because I think that's another breed altogether. I'm not the type who apologizes for having a prick or being sexual. When I met Patsy, the only feminists I knew were from Nightwood Theatre. Most of them weren't really sexual (or at least, they didn't advertise that they were), so it was hard for me to be close to them. Patsy was pretty frank about her sex life, though, and we used to gossip like girlfriends. Which is, of course, essential. Through Patsy I met a whole new set of friends. Patsy was close to Micah Barnes, who was a young actor/singer at the time — so close that she used to sleep with him sometimes. And he was gay. She introduced him to Laurie Lynd, a very beautiful young man (who went on to be a major Canadian gay filmmaker), at one of her fabulous dinners at our flat, and Laurie and Micah had a brief, but serious, relationship. Patsy also knew a lot of native Canadians because she often designed productions for the Native Theatre School on Spadina. She was great friends with Tomson Highway and his brother Rene. They used to come over for dinner a lot. At the time, Tomson was a composer and Rene was a very beautiful dancer. We had a small kitchen in our old Georgian house. Our kitchen table was an unpainted door resting on a crate, so it was kind of rickety. Patsy, the

43

handyman in our household, was always going to fix it, but she was a great procrastinator. (When we moved in together, the arrangement was that I would occupy the lovely front room while Patsy got the basement — for six months. Then we were supposed to switch. Of course we never did. "Are you okay down there, Patsy?" I would say. She'd shrug and say, "Oh, I'm fine. . . ." Looking back, it was terrifically selfish of me.) Our kitchen and Patsy were always a great mess when she cooked. But what delights she concocted! At dinner the requisite joint would be passed around, but Tomson was always very meticulous in his speech, and campy, too. He was a strange combination of flamboyant and articulate (rather like myself, I guess). Rene was very quiet, like a graceful, slender Buddha; when he did talk, it was to say something really sweet, He was so centred that he always made me feel completely ungrounded, Micah also met Rene at one of these dinners and they later became lovers. I remember being very jealous because they were both just too beautiful to live. And together they were just. . . well, a dream. The kind of wet dream you felt guilty for. Patsy's friendships with native men and women were typical of her nature: calm, accepting, and incredibly receptive to joy. I was always worrying, always impatient and scared, passionate, excited, and angry. But these friends of Patsy's just seemed to let life happen. I know it sounds very cliched, but I found native culture to be a breath of fresh air. I wanted to be as relaxed as those guys, and as relaxed as Patsy seemed to be. Tomson and I never became close friends, but we used to hang out in the same seedy gay places, and we'd often meet. Later, when he became a successful playwright, I was jealous of his artistic freedom. It seemed to me that the foul-mouthed native characters in his plays were accepted as a colourful aspect of native culture. On the other hand, when fags in my plays talked dirty it was usually labelled "gratuitous." I think most people know Tomson is gay, but he's not the type of guy who brings it up every in every interview. I am. Because, as Harvey Milk said (and I'm paraphrasing), every time somebody admits they're queer, people see that someone nice, familiar, someone they know, is gay or lesbian. And each time that happens people learn and find it easier to accept. I don't blame Tomson for not talking about it all the time, because he is native and has other issues. It's very difficult when you have to deal with both racism and homophobia. Muriel Miguel, a wonderful

native artist (who performed a one-person show at Buddies in the !8os), usedd to ask the question, "Am I a native or a lesbian first?" It's difficult to answer. Living with Patsy wasn't just a psychosocial tonic. It was also a passionate working relationship. The Theatre Centre soon moved to its new space at 666 King Street West, and Patsy designed my first play there — one of my first big successes, Cavafy, or The Veils of Desire. Five companies — Necessary Angel, Autumn Leaf, Buddies, Nightwood, and AKA Performance Art — moved into 666 King West. The street number would prove unfortunate, because a tragic accident later occurred in this space, when Thorn Solcoloski was directing a production for Theatre Autumn Leaf. An actor was impaled on a pole. Somehow, he survived the accident reasonably intact. The current tenants of the building (I think it's some sort of clothing design centre) have, perhaps out of superstition, given it another street number. But the building suited us just fine, and we didn't think twice about the number of the beast. Cynthia had discovered it, of course. It was a warehouse space at the corner of King and Bathurst, and there were some pillars dividing up the floor, but we thought we could direct around them (in fact, I often used them to good effect in my productions; they were great for crucifying people, for instance . . .). I remember staying up late one night to paint or plaster or scrape or something — the group effort really made me feel like a part of an artistic team. We hired an administrator named Wendy Dawson and she was a great help. We were able to put out posters advertising our season, and Wendy managed the rental issues. Cavafy, or The Veils of Desire was yet another poetic piece (I still had five more left to write in those early years!) inspired by Greek poet Constantine Cavafy. His poems were a revelation. Of course I wasn't so much interested in the ones about Greek or Egyptian history (like later, when I similarly ignored Pasolini's writings about fascism) — no, I was interested in the poems about boys. I suspected then (as I know now), that there is something inherently radical in gay images. Unabashed, unashamed scenes of queer boys kissing and being sexual are very political. They shake up the patriarchy more than even overtly political poetry. Cavafy was my "gayest" production yet. The poster, designed by one of Patsy's friends, was a drawing of two naked men kissing passionately.

45

Patsy's design took the "veils of desire" in the title quite literally. She bought lots and lots of gorgeous fabric and hung it from the ceiling. There were parts of the play where the beautiful boys would just wrap themselves in it, reciting Cavafy's words. The fabric was either translucent or caught the light, which made it a play about lighting. Many of the poems concerned youth, aging, and the transitory nature of beauty. I was writing about those themes quite a lot, actually. I think it's because I came out of the closet so late in life that I thought of myself as being an old man. I was in love with one of the boys in the cast, Neil Cadger. I can't remem-.

ber how I met him. He was a young blond with thick, kissable lips, a wiry body, and an irrepressible energy. But he already had a boyfriend and he spurned my advances. It was very frustrating. Because Neil was talented and had theatrical aspirations, I thought that I had found the perfect substitute for Glenn. He inspired a gigantic, unpublished poem called "Neil: ATentrology," and a short musical called An Evening, which was performed (at Factory Theatre's Brave New Works Festival) after Cavafy closed. Looking back at Neil,Neil,l, I'm amazed that I could make so much angst out of so little experience. It's a testament to how tenuous I imagined my new queer existence to be. Because I thought myself such an ugly duckling, and because I'd spent so many years pretending to be straight, it seemed that my gay life might disappear at any moment. One evening with a beautiful, talented boy was enough to drive me to distraction — and I'd write three plays. Neil was infuriating — an unconscionable flirt — and very ambitious. I decided to do something I'd never done before and would never do again: cast a boy that I had fallen in love with. (I excused the decision by reminding myself that I hadn't slept with him, and wouldn't — at least until the play was over.) During the production Neil had an affair with one of the other actors in the play. It was agony. I tried to use my jealousy in my directing as I watched the guy caress Neil during their scenes and consequently imagined their horrifying post-show clinches. I found it very useful artistically. But I was very lonely and tortured. Amazing things started happening. The play opened, audiences loved it, and Glenn returned from Europe. And then, though the gorgeous, untouchable Neil was driving me nuts, Glenn turned up at the opening! The morning after, he was in my bed. I was in heaven again. Our affair lasted for the better part of a year. But

this time, although we were writing poems for each other, Glenn was even more emotionally unavailable. He quickly found another boyfriend and juggled the two of us — sometimes with comic results. I remember one poignant, funny evening he was trying desperately to come and couldn't. "What's the problem?" I asked. "Well," said Glenn, sweetly, "I masturbated twice this morning, and had sex with Ricky this afternoon, and now with you, there's nothing left." I guess it must have been Glenn's honesty and humour that kept me hooked, because I sure was jealous of his other boyfriend. And quite happily obsessed ("Tainted Love" was our favourite song). Many months into our romp, Glenn told me that he wouldn't have sex with me anymore. This occasioned another spate of poems and short plays (With You/Without You and Tonhsong) and more self-loathing. I don't think all of this was Glenn's fault. He was just a 19-year-old kid. And I was still in a state of disbelief that I was actually a practising homosexual. (Unfortunately, it seemed sometimes that I was still just practising!) I was sure that any joy, when it arrived, was only fleeting. How could it possibly ever last? The wound from my passionate reunion and consequent breakup with Glenn would last a very long time. Another actor who made his debut in Cavafy and then went on to some fame and fortune was Jim Millan. Later he started a company called Crow's Theatre, which did its first productions in the early '8os at Buddies' Rhubarb! Festivals (their first hit there was The Unspeakably Comic World Of Salvador Dali). Jim and I were friends. I remember taking steam at the gym with him and noticing that he was quite, shall we say, well-endowed. Well, I guess that, along with his charming manner, quick wit, and pretty face, explained why all the girls were after him. In one of my favourite scenes in the play, Neil played the good boy and Jim played the bad one. Bill Zaget, as Cavafy, had to decide which boy's room to enter. Neil was pretty and smiling. Jim was dark and demonic. Of course Cavafy went into the bad boy's room. Ray Conlogue gave me my second great review in the Globe, and one of his last unreserved raves of my work. I was very proud of the piece and we went on to remount it (with my friend Barbara Wright's help) at a theatre in an old courthouse on Adelaide Street (I think it's boarded up now). Two very important people saw that show. One of them did nothing. The other one made me an offer that changed my life.

47

Barbara Wright invited Moses Znaimer to see the remount on Adelaide, and she managed to get me quite excited about the possibility of another remount. This was just after Richard Rose's incredibly successful Tamara had been picked up (by Moses, I think) for some sort of tour. Barbara thought that Cavafy was just as good a play as Tamara and that it would be great to tour it somewhere. I always think it's sweet when naive, non-homophobic straight people try and promote my work. But I just want to look at them kindly and say, "The rest of the world is homophobic, so give up. Don't even try — you'll be disappointed!" Barbara probably wouldn't have listened to me anyway. So, she very sweetly escorted Moses to the show and flirted with him. (Moses, I hear, likes the ladies.. ..) Of course it didn't work. When Barbara suggested he pick up my play for yet another remount, Moses said, "Well I guess it would have some appeal . . . but mainly for homosexuals." Years later, I punished Moses for that remark by not flirting with him. I was at some loft party, all dressed up in drag, and somebody pointed to a Mafioso-looking fellow in the corner surreptitiously sipping his drink. "That's Moses Znaimer," the person said. "He likes anything in a dress! You

should flirt with him." I didn't even try. I have no idea if this Moses gossip was true, and so I probably shouldn't repeat it. But who knows . . . if I had followed that friend's advice, maybe I could have had a second career as a Cityxv weather girl! The other important person who came to see Cavafy was the artistic director of the Shaw Festival, Christopher Newton. I remember the moment very clearly. It was near the end of the run and the show was doing very well. The play finished and Christopher Newton burst into the dressing room. He was enormously enthusiastic, saying that he thought the show was brilliant. Newton's praise meant a lot to me. At last, someone I could respect, someone with power and influence in the arts community, was responding to my work. As I have mentioned, one of the reasons I decided to start a theatre company was that no one in Toronto seemed interested in my plays. Before Buddies, I was so desperate that I submitted one of my scripts to a performance gallery. I took the script of City Nights to A Space. But they rejected it, too, saying: "This script is fiction. It's fake. We're concerned with reality. With truth." For the Toronto arts community, the subject matter of my work

was uninteresting because it wasn't contemporary, Canadian, or "real." Call me crazy, but I just don't think that art is essentially mimetic. By that, I mean I don't think it accurately holds a mirror up to life. Passe Muraille is famous for its farm shows — for venturing into rural communities and gathering documentary information, and then fashioning a play from the research. A Space is known for producing community art that reflects the multi-sexual and multi-racial city of Toronto. I think that both of these approaches to art are admirable, but neither approach is mine. I think it's sweet when artists try to imitate the reality that they see around them. And Canada certainly has a long tradition of documentary production, especially through the auspices of the NFB. But can artists really imitate life? Don't they just imitate what they imagine life to be? And isn't every artistic interpretation of life filtered through the artist's own consciousness, quirks, and prejudices? And isn't that ultimately what makes it interesting? I think what's fascinating about Tennessee Williams, for instance, is the way he perceives reality — which in A Streetcar Named Desire is very much filtered through the eyes of Blanche DuBois, because I think that Blanche is Tennessee Williams. About Tennessee Williams: I happen to know two boys he tried to pick up. One is an ex-boyfriend, Shaun, and the other is Daniel Allman, who performed in my play Pasolini/Pelosi. These two encounters inspired a play I wrote in the mid-'8os called My Night with Tennessee. Shaun was just a ij-year-old boy living in a Vancouver hotel with his mom back in 1979. Williams was staying there during a production of The Red Devil Battery Sign. He saw my lithe and lovely future boyfriend and slipped him his card, inviting Shaun to "come up and see him sometime." Shaun was too shy and didn't take him up on the request. He's cursed himself ever since. Daniel Allman was also propositioned by Tennessee in Vancouver. He invited the small, dark pretty boy to visit his hotel room and read poetry. There was one hitch — Daniel had to read in his underwear. Well, Daniel agreed. He said that Tennessee was pretty stoned and that nothing sexual happened. But think about it. If I just happen to know two boys who were propositioned by Tennessee Williams during a short stay in Vancouver, how many people do you think Tennessee approached in his lifetime? I'd say there must be a whole lot of boys with these stories and yellowing Tennessee Williams business cards to prove them. I mention Tennessee Williams because Christopher Newton and I both

49

admired his work. A couple of years later, just after Williams died, Christopher and I were sitting in his kitchen, and I read the great writer's obituary out loud. "It says here he choked on an inhaler bottle cap," I said. "It was poppers," Christopher said authoritatively. "Are you sure?" I asked. "What else would it be?" he answered. Christopher and I shared an aesthetic — and it was something of little interest to most Toronto artists. I guess the closest way you could come to describing it is Christopher's phrase: we were both interested in creating (Cr* 3> fine art. Now, my work is not documentary, or truthful, or mimetic in the Canadian tradition. I think it's more in the American tradition of poetic/hopeful fantasy, or cheery musical comedy, or outrageous satire. Like all artists, I make a pathetic attempt to imitate reality. But I am painfully aware that it's only my reality, and it's my colouring that makes it interesting and unique. The degree of self-consciousness in my work about that colouring, that perspective, is baffling to some. That self-consciousness is called camp. My discouraging encounters with Canadian arts institutions early in my career, along with my extensive and somewhat torturous dramaturgical experience with Bill Glassco, convinced me that people just didn't understand where I was coming from. You see, before I started writing about gay subject matter, my work could only be described as "fine art." That is, I was interested in making beautiful images and writing beautiful scenes. I considered myself apolitical. In fact, I still don't consider myself to be, essentially, a political writer. I know that may seem like an odd thing for me to say, but it shouldn't sound too strange to anyone who knows the difference between theme and subject matter. Unfortunately,o. few people do. I compare myself with Brecht in this area. This is not to say that I compare my talent to Brechts, but I think we are similar writers in one way — we have chosen political subject matter for our work, and yet our work is not essentially political. Brechts plays were eventually very successful in capitalist countries and in America, but there was a curious consistency in the reluctance of communist countries to perform his work. Now you could say that this was because the USSR was not a true socialist Utopia. But I think there's another reason: Brecht's work is not good propaganda. The subject

matter is certainly left-wing, but Brecht's such a brilliant writer his plays are actually about human beings. Forget his theories about creating characters that will "alienate" the audience; in reality his characters are enthrallingly human. His plays are not about socialism, but about life. Socialism is, how ever, his subject matter. I would suggest that one of the reasons Brecht was a socialist was that he needed something to write about. If you set out to write about generalities then you write about nothing but your own boring sentiments and experiences. But a specific subject may reveal some universal truths. The same thing is true about acting. Actors need blocking, props, things to do. Sometimes opening a box of crackers while someone else is talking says volumes more than telling the actor to "act uninterested." Similarly, I think that I'm a good enough writer that my plays are not about homosexuality. However, issues and historical figures from gay history, or from contemporary gay life, are often the subject matter of my work. I think that most people are unable to make this distinction. Sometimes even artistic directors confuse subject matter with theme. And this is one reason why my plays are not often performed. They sometimes offend straight people with their subject matter. But they also offend gay people. I am similar to Brecht in this particular way: my plays don't make good gay propaganda because my gay characters are flawed and human. When I met Christopher Newton I knew intuitively that he understood all this. Because Christopher was reasonably open about being gay and quite comfortable about his sexuality, he did not let the subject matter of my work overwhelm him. And his affection for the whimsy of Edwardian theatre suggested to me that he didn't expect aft to mirror reality. I think he took the gay subject for granted and was enthralled with the beauty I was attempting to put onstage. So Christopher hired me to work at the Shaw Festival. I think many people thought this was ironic, that I was selling out. Why would a gay writer like me want to work at a place that Christopher Newton openly called a "fine art" theatre? Because, essentially, I think my goal has always been to produce fine art. The subject of my work just happens to be the politically contentious issue of gay life. So, when Christopher Newton walked into that dressing room, I was flabbergasted, overwhelmed, excited, surprised, and elated. He was about 45 years old — approximately 17 years my senior. He seemed very much like a father (or uncle) figure. He was an educated Brit; not many people know

51

this, but before Christopher became an actor at the Stratford Festival in the '6os, he used to teach at universities in the U.S. Anyone who has met him will tell you that he's a handsome, eloquent, charming person. And for me to have the artistic director of a Canadian institution like the Shaw Festival compliment my work — well, I was overwhelmed. For years I had yearned for a mentor. I looked for one in Bill Glassco and was disappointed. In Christopher I found it all: a teacher, a mentor, and, ultimately, a lover. Christopher asked me if I would like to assistant direct two shows for the Shaw's 1982 season: The Secret Life of Albert Nobbs and Cyrano De Bergerac. Iace t would assist Christopher on Nobbs and Derek Goldby on Cyrano. It was very exciting. All of a sudden, I wasn't doing my work alone. There was someone to support me, emotionally and artistically. Before I left for the Shaw, I did one show in Toronto that was a complete flop: Marilyn Monroe Is Alive and Well and Living in Joe's Brain. It was based on the writings of Joe Brainard, a little-known post-beat gay poet. He was the boyfriend of Kenward Elmslie, an American novelist and librettist. Anyway, I love Brainard's faux-naive poetry: "When in doubt, sprinkle with cheese and bake." His most famous poem is "I Remember," a touching, funny, nostalgic take on childhood in which every line begins "I remember . . ." I've always been interested in the faux-naive: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye is my favourite book, and Andy Warhol is one of my favourite personalities. I think that deep down I feel very childish and innocent. Marilyn was my faux-naive show. It was supposed to be about Brainard and Andy Warhol. In the end, Joe Brainard the poet meets Marilyn Monroe in heaven. I asked renowned Toronto clown Dean Gilmour to play Joe. Our collaboration was not a success. Dean is a contemplative actor who trained at LeCoq in Paris, and he's capable of some very funny, touching work. But our rhythms are different. Dean works very precisely and scientifically. That's what clowns do. My humour is instinctive; I'm impatient and imprecise. The production was a mess — nobody seemed to like the play, and nobody came. I'll admit that I tried to follow a Warholian philosophical maxim: I told the actors that the play was supposed to be boring, like his movies — Empire and Sleep. I was very hurt when nobody liked it, but I was on my way to the Shaw Festival, so nothing else seemed to matter. I enjoyed working with Christopher on The Secret Life of Albert Nobbs. Nobbs

is based on the true story of a woman in 19th-century England who lived and worked as a man. Nora McLellan played Albert, and Mary Vingoe from Nightwood Theatre played the lesbian who wooed her. It was fascinating watching Christopher work. He was a very traditional director in some ways — no theatre games. Up until that point I had always felt that I had to do improvs with actors, or make them run around and act like animals or something at least once during rehearsal. But after working with Christopher I felt free to simply direct. Christopher's method was to work through scenes in order, occasionally stopping to dwell on important moments. He'd talk about those moments, explore them, ask questions of the actors. Often we wouldn't move on until we had discovered a particular truth about a certain section of the play. That was it. After working with Christopher I started relaxing as a director. I stopped forcing things and showing off— and I began to trust my instincts. What's my method? Well, I'd say that the most important lesson a director can learn is to cast well. Many lousy directors are praised for a job well done simply because they typecast. In that sense, I suppose I'm a lazy director. I'd rather not start from scratch and teach an actor all about the character. I prefer to hire actors who have a very wide range, or who can immediately identify with the part. The key isn't just casting by looks — you must pinpoint the principal aspects of each character. This usually has to do with speed, weight, and power. Is the character light and tense? Or heavy, dominant, and slow? Must the character be likeable? If you cast an unlikeable actor (or even one who just looks menacing), you could be in trouble. If your actor's personality, energy, or temperament is somewhat near to the character's, or if the actor is brilliant and can act anything (not all actors can — even the great ones), then you're okay. Unfortunately, many directors think their job ends with casting, that they needn't direct at all — except to order the actors about and make them paranoid, of course. ("Could you turn slightly to the left when you pick up the cup, please — no, not just before, not after, but exactly when you pick up the cup?" Or, "That line should be said angrily, but at the end it should come up, like a question. Like this. . . .") Now, there is a time for precision (especially when directing comedy), but my experience as an actor has helped me understand how difficult and pressured the job can be. The most important thing is that actors feel they can trust their director — most actors don't. This

53

means that the director must create an open, supportive environment where spontaneity can happen — and where the director can admit his/her mistakes. And it means that the director must have a vision. The trick to not impose that vision on the actors, but rather lead them to it, organically, using their own talents, temperaments, and quirks. This means my rehearsals are fun and relaxed, that the actors feel they can say pretty well anything to me. I try not to be an authority figure (which is tough because I'm so big and mean-looking!). I set up a joking, informal relationship with my actors. If I don't like an idea, I can comfortably say, "Umm... no, sorry, that's not it." And they won't be hurt. But it works both ways. If the actors don't fancy my suggestions they can say so. I think the biggest mistake some directors make is to imagine that art must be painful. So many directors put their casts through agonies. But I don't think creation necessarily evolves from suffering. Life is full of suffering. It's everywhere we look. Shouldn't our art — our work — be stimulating, relaxed, and fun? My rehearsals are short (most people need to stop after four hours) and to the point. I never make actors wait around unless it s absolutely necessary. The truth is, I love directing. When I trust my instincts, it comes easily. It's more challenging when some of the images have to be created from scratch, as in non-scripted theatre, or theatre of image, when the stage pic-

tures are only vaguely implied in the text and must be created from square one in rehearsal. It's hard work, but it, too, can be fun. Communication is probably the director's most difficult, and important, task. Words mean different things to different people, angry, to some, means enraged, and to others it means irritated. I always try to be exact, to speak the language of the actor. Some actors are completely intellectual — I spend a lot of time discussing Ideas with them. Others are completely intuitive — they want images or emotional correlatives. Some want blocking that is very specific; others want to find it all themselves. Sometimes I have a vision of die rhythm and feel of a scene that may be difficult to express, but is very clear in my imagination. I try to help the actors find that rhythm, that tone, that feel, without forcing matters. My personal approach is probably more intuitive than intellectual, but I understand that every actor works differently. I usually start off every rehearsal by talking about the sex I had the night before, or the lousy play I just saw, or by letting the actors beef about their TTC ride, their hangover, their latest audition — whatever's bugging them.

That's why I often work with queers, or with actors who are gay positive. People who are nice. I find it very difficult to work in an atmosphere where I can't be myself, where I can't, for instance, use a frank sexual discussion to illustrate a point. So, as you might expect, despite all I learned about directing from Christopher, I found the rest of the Shaw Festival experience somewhat alienating. I missed my friends in Toronto (though Patsy came to visit me), and I was very bored in Niagara-on-the-Lake. There is one major difference between Christopher and me: he is truly a man of the theatre. He is a brilliant actor and director, and has only occasionally tried his hand at writing. I, on the other hand, consider myself primarily a writer who happens to have worked in the theatre. I've always been a little suspicious of theatre people. One thing that illustrates our differences is my play Theatrelife, which I produced five years later at Buddies. In it, I criticized the falsity, the lies of the theatre world. Obsequious, fawning actors are lampooned, and the director, though a kind man, is somewhat pompous. I based the character of the director in the play very loosely on Christopher. After he saw Theatrelife I asked Christopher if he liked it. I was relieved that he wasn't at all offended by my representation. Instead, he said, "That play makes me uncomfortable." I asked him why. "Because audiences might think theatre people are really like that." Christopher's loyalty to the theatre world and actors is quite admirable. That's what makes us different. I really don't trust many actors as people now, although back then I was more gullible. I have very few friends who are actors. Certainly there are many alternative actors who are more concerned with the "art," and less concerned with their careers. But most mainstream TV and film actors are, I think, overly ambitious and false. That's a lesson that's taken me a long time to learn. Most of Christopher's friends are actors; some of them are very nice, but ultimately not my cup of tea. Perhaps it's because when I was at the Shaw Festival, they were sucking up to Christopher and not me: I was a very small fish in a very big pond. But I also think it's because I'm insecure enough to demand absolute sincerity from people on a one-to-one basis. When I was at the Shaw, I was enthralled with all those theatrical people gushing with warmth and personality; I suddenly seemed to have a host of new friends. I trusted them, but they also made me a bit uncomfortable with all that air-kissing.

55

Time would tell. I spent many evenings at Christopher's house. Often we'd stay up late and have a drink and socialize with the actors. Christopher treated me like his brilliant protege, which, I have to admit, was extremely nice. Then, finally, one night we slept together. The first night we had sex all I could think about was, "Oh my God, I'm having sex with Christopher Newton!" I realized right away that I was in love with him. For me it was like being in heaven, having a handsome older man be my friend and talk to me about my ideas and about sex and love — having someone who could understand. Christopher told me a lot about his past in Vancouver and his favourite bars there. He told me so much that I almost felt like I'd been at the Shaggy Horse, a seedy hangout for prostitutes and criminals. Christopher loved that place. And he loved drag queens. He said, "I could never do it myself. .. but they're absolutely beautiful!" I think we had this love of "the lowlife" in common. It was a side of gay culture that I was just beginning to discover at the bathhouses in Toronto. How could I fall in love with Christopher, an older man, when I've already said that my type was slender boys? Well, Christopher actually was a slender boy — only grown-up. He was far more attractive, even at 45, than I would ever be. And of course we clicked the way Glenn and I had clicked — creatively — only more so. The affair lasted the summer and we had lots of fun. Working on Cyrano De Bergeracwith Derek Goldby was quite an adventure. I think Derek is a marvellous director, although his methods are nothing like Christopher's. Newton survives on charm. Everybody loves him so much that he can just charm the actors into being brilliant. Goldby, at least then, thrived on terror. He very clearly had his favourites, and he could go off into a screaming fit at any moment. Still, people put up with him because he really knows what he's doing. Derek's claim to fame is that he directed the first production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, which went on to international renown. Derek was obsessed with pace and rhythm — two things very important in Stoppard's work. Heath Lamberts was Goldby's Cyrano, and he was the star of the Shaw at the time. I'll never forget having to prompt him. It was a nightmare. Heath

would come to rehearsal without knowing his lines, and insist on learning them there. Which is fine, lots of actors do it. But he would also insist on being "off book." So there I would be, waiting with the script, and Heath would be trying to remember his lines — except he couldn't. And God help you if you prompted him before he called for a line. But he never actually knew them. So he'd say, "Umm . .. what is that line? No, don't tell me, I know it. I know it. Let me think, ummm . . . what's the context. . . I'm, umm . . . let me think. . . . Oh god, I know this line, I know it. . . . Oh, what is it? Wait — I'm getting it, wait. I know this. Oh, God. Fuck. What is it?"whayis it;' At which point I would tentatively offer the line, unsure whether he actually wanted it. And Heath would yell, "Oh fuck! Jesus. I knew that. . . . Why couldn't I get it? Shit. Why? Fuck." And then we would go on to the next terrifying line. It just seemed to me that Heath was stalling. That he didn't want to rehearse with the other actors. Headi is a brilliant performer, but back then he had a tendency to act more for the audience than with the other actors. I also remember rehearsing an elaborate curtain call for the show. It lasted for about 15 minutes. Talk about overconfidence! Thank God Cyrano was a hit. Anyway, Derek brought in Veronica Tennant to choreograph the curtain call, which involved approximately 30 actors actually dancing the bows. I remember one point in the tedious process when actor/director Susan Cox turned to me and whispered, "This is the last time you'll see Susan Cox playing 'Second Nun!'" And, feeling just as irritated, I whispered back, "This is the last time you'll see Sky Gilbert 'assistant direct!'" My main job was to be in charge of the apprentices — all the cute young men in the show. Derek and Christopher often hired extremely attractive young men to be "spear carriers." Not all of them were talented. Christopher liked to look at them, but he also wanted to give them an acting break. Derek had a much more ambiguous relationship with these kids. He liked very much to look at them, too, but he also seemed to want to terrorize them. I would work with the kids endlessly on their one or two lines. And then each would go before Derek and do his litde speech. It was very suspenseful trying to figure out which apprentice Derek would end up hating the most. When he found his bete noir he would go at him tooth and tongs. It was scary, and I felt sorry for them. I wasn't sure whether or not Derek liked me. First of all, he didn't like

57

the idea of gay theatre, even though he was very gay himself. He was one of those fags who believe we should just keep it all in the closet. Derek's views were typical of some members of the Shaw. Christopher was different. He was about the same age as Derek, but he called Derek and his ilk "old-style fags." People often think that because there are so many gay men in the theatre I have an easy time of it as an out writer and director. Nothing could be further from the truth. I find that I only get along with those who are completely comfortable with their sexuality, whether they're gay or straight. But there are a huge number of both gay and straight men who are completely embarrassed and uncomfortable about homosexuality. My open existence is terrifying and disgusting to them. Closet cases and "nice" homosexuals hate me because I talk openly about gay sex and culture. Several years after my first Shaw Festival experience, for instance, I appeared at the Dora Awards in a dress. I got an irate phone call from an old British sometimeShaw actor who shall remain nameless because he's a closet case. He berated me. "I saw you arid Tomson Highway at die Doras, camping around," he said. "There's really no need for that sort of behaviour. In my day, we kept our camping to ourselves." Derek Goldby never said this to me, but I had a feeling he shared the attitude. I realized I was right about this when Christopher told me that he had had to defend me to Derek. "About what?" I said, really worried that Derek thought I was an inept assistant director. "It's about your headbands and your short shorts," said Christopher wryly. I was almost 30 and probably far too old to wear a stylish kerchief around my forehead — but, well, I guess I was still living out my lost gay youth. Thinking back, I probably looked ridiculous, and certainly frighteningly gay. "Derek asked me to tell you to stop wearing headbands and to wear longer shorts. He says it's undignified for an assistant director at the Shaw Festival to dress like that." Oh no, I thought, afraid Christopher was going to chew me out. "I told him to buzz, off," said Christopher, who thought Derek's concerns were ridiculous. That was a dream summer. Sometime after the opening of Cyrano, Christopher told me about his plans for the following year. He had been producing little operettas at the Royal George Theatre for many years. When I was there in 1981, they remounted Romberg's Desert Song. It was designed by Mary Kerr, and I was in love with the production. And in the Festival Theatre he directed the breathtaking Camille by Robert David MacDonald, the

avant-garde Scottish writer. I think, in fact, that the productions that Christopher directed my first year at Shaw are my favourite of all his works. Both of these productions were "camp." Not visibly camp enough to alienate conservative straights, but certainly camp enough to please anyone with a gay sensibility. What is camp? Ever since Susan Sontag coined the term in the '6os people often equate the term "camp" with the word "gay." They aren't the same thing. Camp is essentially gay postmodern ism. In both camp and postmodernism, the artist sits outside and inside the work at the same time. These techniques allow modern artists to incorporate romance. It all started with the Dadaists at the turn of the century, who viewed the 19th-century Romantic movement as corrupt. After Duchamp put a urinal on display as art, it was never again possible to be a serious romantic artist. But of course people are essentially romantic; they want to be able to feel dreadfully sorry for themselves and revel in love, disgrace, and yearning. Camp and postmodernism allow artists to present romantic visions of life while at the same time standing outside the romantic conventions, being critical of them, and sometimes even making fun of them. I don't think it's chance that some of the greatest postmodern theorists, such as Roland Barthes, were gay. Queers stand outside of much mainstream culture anyway, since they hardly ever see images of themselves in art or on TV. We can

never totally identify with heterosexual stories of masculine heroes saving weak feminine women, since our fantasies are same-sex ones. Robert David MacDonald's Camille, for instance, stands outside the romantic play and the opera, and juxtaposes their formality with what MacDonald sees as the real story — the death of a foul-mouthed whore. Christopher revelled in dais orgy of camp. In MacDonald's play, we're given both pristine operatic duets and Camille swearing vociferously at her puerile young lover. Similarly, in Desert Song Christopher mixed his love for a piece of swashbuckling trash with a sense of humour. He held the perfect balance between camp and emotion. In my view, the operetta was a completely gay piece. And, in private at least, Christopher agreed with me. There were so many camp numbers. Beth Ann Cole sang a hilarious song addressed to her lover's "sword," for instance. And Christopher was particularly pleased with the bassos exit line in the second act: "I'm off to the baths!" But at the same time Desert Song truly moved me with its romantic sentiments and its hummable tunes.

59

That summer Christopher asked me if I'd like to co-write the libretto for the next year's operetta. It would be based on the famous novel Tom Jones. I was thrilled because I had loved Desert Song. That winter I would go to his little house in Niagara-on-the-Lake and we would work on the libretto. Christopher made me read die massive book. "I'm not going to read it," he said. "That's your job." I did. We worked well together and it was all very romantic. I have pictures of myself perched at my typewriter by the fireplace in his living room, looking happy as a clam. In Toronto that fall, Buddies staged two new plays. One was my second play about Patti Smith, MurderLover. The other was a work about Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini called Pasolini/Pelosi, which I wrote during my first summer at Shaw. MurderLover starred Mary Hawkins again, this time as die spirit of Patti Smith. Kirn Renders depicted Patti's real, physical self with supreme intensity. The play was inspired by the love affair between Smith and Sam Shepard, and by the play they wrote together, Cowboy Mouth. It was an attempt to explore violence and sexual attraction in a heterosexual context. But MurderLover is also pretty wacky; at one point Patti Smith turns into a duck. Patty designed a great duck suit in which Kim sang a silly litde duck song. For Pasolini/Pelosi, Patsy designed a series of translucent sand-colouredaourd panels. They were unpretentious and worked as palettes for the lights. That was the wonderful thing about Patsy: unlike most designers, who draw attention to their own work with their flash, her sets for my shows were, like her personality, low-key. But they were also crafty and highly effective. Another great thing was that I'd hooked up with Ken McDougall again. He choreographed die dances. Pasolini/Pelosi was one of my biggest hits, and I look back on it very fondly, especially the second act, which included a ritualistic re-enactment of the murder of Pasolini. The night Tomson and Rene Highway and their nephew Billy Merasty came to see the show with Micah Barnes, Rene turned to me and said, very seriously, "The spirit of Pasolini was here tonight. We saw him." I was very flattered and excited, and I believed him. Openly gay reviewer Jay Scott of the Globe and Mail wrote one of the first reviews of my work that didn't seem to be reviewing homosexuality instead of the play. The Stars Gina Mallet, however, refused to attend the

performance because the publicity featured a photo of a nude teenage boy. (It was an old photograph by R Holland Day, who is little known outside gay circles, but whose turn-of-the-century photos of boys are hypnotizing. They're vague and fuzzy — you usually can't see the genitals — but often the boys look Christlike.) Buddies continued its annual Rhubarb! Festival at 666 King Street West. An interesting historical fact about Rhubarb! that often goes misreported is that there were, in fact, two Rhubarb! Festivals produced by Buddies alone before Nightwood produced five festivals in cooperation with Buddies. I think it's very important to note that Rhubarb! was a Buddies invention. But, on the other hand, I think it's also important not to underestimate the influence of Nightwood, and specifically Cynthia, Kim Renders, and Maureen White. Cynthia especially was a big influence on my work, and on Rhubarb! The original concept for the festival was that it would be a workshop presentation of new scripts. The only thing radical about Rhubarb!, really, in the beginning, was that it wasn't a fringe festival; we didn't pick plays by lottery. Instead, the plays were carefully chosen, many for their avant-garde nature. On the other hand, there was no interference in the form of dramaturgy. From my early days working with Bill Glassco, I had become suspicious of the dramaturgical process. It seemed to me then, and it still does, that directors and artistic directors can use their power to intimidate writers into changing their scripts. Even to this day, people like Urjo Kareda scoff at what they see as my paranoid view of an imagined power structure. Kareda is a critic who became an artistic director during the '8os; he's been running the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto for more than a decade. He's a very powerful man, and he's smart, but I disagree with his aesthetic — it's a shame that young writers fall prey to his often severe and dogmatic ideas about theatre. Many times over the years I've had to rescue a young queer playwright from depression after receiving one of Urjo's angry rejection letters. He's been known to tell talented and serious young artists that they can't write, or that they'll never be a writer — to, in effect, stop writing. As you'll see later, my differences with people like Kareda and Jackie Maxwell, artistic director of Factory Theatre, over Rhubarb! led to some nasty scenes offstage. Because I started off my career as a powerless writer who was very much at the mercy of big artistic directors like Bill Glassco, I was, naturally, leery of young writers being forced into similar power relationships widi

61

me or with other artistic directors. I didn't want to set myself up as Daddy overseeing scripts. People have accused Rhubarb! of offering shoddy, underdeveloped work for public scrutiny. Of course, at times, that's happened. That's the risk. But at other times, artists of particular note were being allowed to develop in an environment that was free from power play and domination. In those early years of Rhubarb! Nightwood's great influence was in taking the accent off scripted work. They brought in performance artists and people who were trying interesting — but not necessarily script-oriented — experiments in theatre. Daniel Brooks, for instance, was an early "Rhubarb!-ie." Cynthia brought him into the loop after meeting him at the uc Playhouse. Kim Renders and Maureen White used to perform a wonderful comedy piece called Soft-Boiled. They wore curly purple clown wigs, ate whole soft-boiled eggs and then coughed them up unbroken. (That kind of comic sleight-ofhand was Kim Renders' speciality — she can also open a beer bottle with her eyebrow!) With their androgynous deadpan faces, it was an unforgettable, surrealistic hoot. Cynthia also introduced dancers like Alan Risdill to Rhubarb! The list of others who did early explorations at Rhubarb! includes Ann-Marie MacDonald, David Roche, Sally Clark, Bryden MacDonald, Hillar Liitoja, Ian Wallace (Nion), Jim Warren, Kate Lushington, and, later, people like Daniel Maclvor and Edward Roy. It was also at Rhubarb! that I introduced Ken McDougall and Robin Fulford. Soon they were collaborating, and, many years later, went on to develop the hit play (about gay-bashing) Steel Kiss. In 1984 Buddies stopped producing the festival in collaboration with Nightwood. The split occurred for two reasons: Nightwood wanted to change the time limit of each piece to 15 minutes (from half an hour), and they wanted to edit some of the more pornographic gay work (I think Doug Durand's 1982 Persona Non Grata was at issue). We parted amicably. Starting in 1985, Buddies began producing Rhubarb! on its own once more. I've just slipped over the name of someone who was both a very important influence on my professional life and a part of the theatrical connection between myself and Christopher Newton. That person is Hillar Liitoja. Christopher and I discovered Hillar while we were working on Tom Jones together. It was in the spring, and Patsy and I were living in our house on Robert Street. Christopher had come to visit. Patsy and Christopher always had fun

together, and she made us fabulous meals. I remember Christopher having to go somewhere that required a tux and, feeling very wifely, I fixed his tie. I also remember that the landlord of our flat had been having trouble with the garden out front — nothing would grow there. He had tried a new plant with the rather repulsive name of "spurge." As we walked past, I pointed out the spurge to Christopher. An avid gardener, he was very funny about it. "Do you think it will work as ground cover?" I asked. "No," he frowned, crinkling up his nose, "it won't work." "Why?" I asked. "Spurge never works," he said. I don't know why, but at the time what he said was unbearably funny. I guess it was love. love,. Anyway, we were off to see a weird play in some hole-in-the-wall on Queen Street directed by someone with an unpronounceable name. It may very well have been Christopher's idea. He was always wanting to go see avant-garde stuff. He said, wisely, "Performance art is a great place to steal ideas." Performance artists take enormous risks and aren't bound by conventional notions of narrative. Usually we were looking for visual stuff: images, techniques, lighting, sound, and set ideas we wouldn't normally think of in a theatre environment. We didn't want to be bound by the rules of the theatre, at least not in our deepest imaginings, our fantasies of what might possibly be. Hillar's play was staged in the back of a bar. I don't remember much about it, except a beautiful, half-naked woman in a hammock (Rosalba Martini), and some half-naked men. The performance was very sexual, beautiful and moving and frightening and funny. And surprising. I think that's what we were both so happy about — being surprised by a performance for a change. We were both astounded, overjoyed. It was so much fun walking back along Queen Street with him on that spring night. First of all we had to get over the sheer excitement of our discovery. "Hillar Liitoja is a genius!" we said. We were ecstatic. Christopher had Hillar down to the Shaw later to do a couple of performances. In fact, Christopher and I discovered many Toronto performers he later invited to Shaw. Patsy Lang, became a lighting designer (and assistant to Jeffrey Dallas). Later, Ken McDougall and Edward Roy would also work there. That spring we mounted Tom Jones. I was the assistant director. The production was a flop — I don't know why, I can't be objective. I know, ultimately, that it lacked the enthralling camp of Desert Song. Christopher was always fond of our production, however, and still thinks that the critics were unfair. He believes we did a service by bringing attention to the music

63

of Edward German. The truth is, it was almost impossible to transform the novel into a musical. And Christopher and I may have been far too delighted with each other and with the project to produce anything of real value. I mean, were we really capable of being objective about each other's work when we were in love? Christopher's big production that season was Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra. Boy, did that play make me hate George Bernard Shaw. Christopher had such a terrible time making those endless political arguments theatrical. I know Hillar inspired him to use a "picture-frame" for the set, to view the whole thing as a painting, and Shaw designer Cameron Porteous was very responsive to his experimental ideas. I also remember that on one of his trips back to seedy Vancouver and the Shaggy Horse, he discovered a beautiful young Asian boy. I was jealous. Christopher wasn't having sex with the guy, but he was obviously attracted to him. The boy's name was Leonard Chow. Christopher had visited some sleazy strip joint where Leonard was dancing on a table, and, as Christopher put it, "It was amazing. Absolutely amazing. People were writing on this boy's body!" Christopher was so delighted by Leonard that he gave him a supporting role in Caesar and Cleopatra. Christopher used to have these theme parties for the gay men at Shaw late in the summer, and the theme that summer was "wear something small and decorative." Straight actors used to come to these parties, too, just to suck up (I don't mean that literally!) to the important gay men. Most people wore earrings or other jewellery to the party to fit the theme, but one of the straight boys came "wearing" Leonard Chow on his shoulders. Christopher thought it was very funny. After Caeser, Christopher wanted me to stay at Shaw and be his "assistant artistic director" or something. I think the idea was that I would run "The Academy," a workshop and training program he was developing. But something happened that summer: I began to get disenchanted with the whole Shaw experience. At the time I used to hang out a lot with the actor Camille Mitchell (she was a pal of my other friend, Sally Clark). I loved Camille because she was sexy, smart, and irreverent, and she could also be a traditional gay man's "beard." Not that I needed one. But when we stepped out of her sports car and strolled into a restaurant, people would assume I was dating (or at least an intimate of)

this glamorous, petite girl. I have to admit that I was also sort of excited that her father was an ex-minor movie star named Cameron Mitchell (who once acted with Marilyn Monroe). Her Hungarian mother used to know Elizabeth Taylor. "She's older than she says she is," said Camille's mother. Anyway, Camille and I talked a lot about my conflicted feelings about the Shaw Festival. I think the main thing was that I was finding it hard enough to be the artistic director of Buddies without having to organize workshops and classes at Shaw. I know it would have been good for my "career" to stay. But even then I considered myself to be primarily a writer, not an artistic director. Or even a "theatre person." I knew that I was involved with theatre primarily because I wanted to see my writing onstage. I still didn't feel brave enough to act like a real writer — to write a book, or even to put my name on posters as the writer of my plays. But I knew, deep down, that writing was my passion. And that organizing workshops was not. I think Christopher was disappointed by my decision. He had imagined that I was primarily a director and theatre artist like him. But he got Duncan Macintosh to do the job ! was supposed to do; he was the perfect person to be Christopher's assistant. I left the Shaw early that summer, and my defection meant that Christopher and I stopped being physical lovers. That was <2//that ended though. We loved each other very much and continued to be pals. In fact, I introduced him to one of my dearest friends, Nick McMartin — Christopher had seen him at a party at 666 King Street West — and Nick became his lover. This was difficult for me because I was still a bit in love with Christopher. And Nick and I had definitely been flirting. I still had to work part-time in a bookstore (Classic Books) during the winter to make ends meet, and Nick was my co-worker. (Later I turned some of my adventures with Nick into a play called The Postman Rings Once, about two boys who work in a bookstore.) I told Nick lots of stories about Chris and how beautiful and nice he was. Well, go figure, after we broke up and I left Shaw, Chris asked me for Nick's number and they became lovers. They still are. I think they're perfecdy suited. But sometimes I'm sad that it didn't work out with Christopher and, I have to admit, at the time I felt a litde left out. In the spring of 19831 began to experience a hint of the crippling anxiety that would have a significant effect on my life a few years later.

65

It was very odd. I woke up one morning absolutely terrified. It was a lot like what happens to the next-door-neighbour couple in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance. In that play a shy and self-effacing couple come to visit the middle-aged Tobias and his wife, Agnes. But it's no ordinary visit. The neighbours ask if they can move in. When Tobias asks them why, they simply say that they're frightened. They don't know why. It's a vague, overpowering fear, and it makes them feel like helpless children. Well, I woke up one morning in spring 1983 feeling exactly the same thing. A vague but incredibly urgent terror possessed me. I didn't know what to do. I was still living with Patsy, but for some reason she wasn't home. Interestingly, I didn't call any of my Toronto theatre friends. I had been so busy at the Shaw Festival that I hadn't had the time or energy to remain close with them. The closest friend I had in the world was Christopher Newton. I called him up. "I just called to tell you I'm terrified." Christopher was very businesslike. He and Nick were having breakfast. "Oh, yes, of course. That happens." "It does?" "Yes, of course it does. Waves of fear, nausea, intense anxiety. You can't move?" "Exactly," I said, sweating profusely. "I've had that." "So what do I do?" "Are you doing a lot of drugs?" "No, I don't do anything but the usual marijuana." "Oh. Well, how old are you?" "I just turned 30." "Well then. It's that. It's the turning 30 thing. It happened to me, too. It's terribly anxiety-producing." "So what should I do?" "It will go away." "It will?" "Yes." "When?" I paced around my room. "Soon. Don't worry. You may have to endure it for a while, but it will end."

"Thank you, Christopher. That makes me feel better." "Good luck. Nick says hi." "Hi, Nick. Bye." I hung up the phone. The talk had definitely helped. But I don't think Christopher's analysis was correct. It had nothing to do with turning 30. It might well have had something to do with drugs, though. You see, I turned into an alcoholic, as well as habitual marijuana user, at the Shaw Festival. There's something about living in a small town and being trapped with an inbred community of actors that will do it to you. Christopher didn't discourage me from smoking marijuana, but we both agreed that chemicals of any kind weren't good for either of us. Once Christopher told me why he didn't do chemicals: "You know how people always talk about doing drugs and then riding the bus — and all the people look horrible and evil and disgusting — and it scares them?" "Yes," I said. "That happens to me anyway. I don't need drugs to bring it on." I knew exactly what Christopher meant. And I have enough imagination that alcohol and marijuana can easily make me paranoid as well. Because life often makes me paranoid. And sometimes people are monsters. I'm sure many factors conspired to cause my anxiety: leaving Shaw, being boyfriendless while watching Christopher shack up with my ex-best friend, Nick, and experiencing culture shock on my return to Toronto. But the anxiety went away. For a time. The upheavals were not only of the emotional variety. The year after I left Shaw was also a critical one for my work at Buddies. The Theatre Centre had begun to split up by 1983. I can't remember who left first — I think it might have been Necessary Angel because of their great success with Ta.ma.ra. One of my last two 666 King Street West plays was Life Without Muscles, or Growing Up Artistic which was inspired by David Hockney. It was my first Dora-nominated success. The play was based on the paintings and life of David Hockney and the poetry of Thorn Gunn. Patsy outdid herself with the set, which was an actual swimming pool (without water). There was a shower, too. Patsy helped me re-create the images in Hockney's paintings, and the boys looked very pretty swimming in our fake pool. I received my first really cruel insult after doing that show. Ever since this

67

happened I've been suspicious of any stranger who compliments me. A guy walked up to me in a clothing store and said, "Are you Sky Gilbert?" Nowadays when that happens I freeze and put on my coldest smile, for protection. But back then I was more naive and open. "Yes, I am," I said. "I just wanted to say something about Life Without Muscles," he said. "What?" I asked, allallh. open and vulnerable — hoping for a compliment. "It contained one of the most beautiful moments of theatre I have ever seen in my life." "Oh?" I said, very flattered and eager for praise. "Which one?" "The scene where the boy leaves his shirt on the chair," he said, and then he went on, without even taking a breath. "The rest of the play was shit, but that moment was really great." Then he walked away. I was crushed and depressed for a week. Not just by the insult but by his deliberate cruelty. How can people be so nasty? And why do diey bother anyway? Talk about monsters! My other play that year, Lacey, or Tropicsnows, was inspired by Christopher. He recommended a book by Canadian poet E.A. Lacey. Lacey's work reminded us both of Cavafy. His poems are elegiac, simple evocations of die frustration that comes from loving beautiful boys who sometimes give nothing back. His hatred of Canada and his hometown of Lindsay, Ontario, pretty well got him run out of the country. I think Christopher identified with Lacey. Sometimes he felt as trapped in his Britishness as Lacey did in his Canadianness. Lacey's work is really about the loneliness of promiscuity, but also about its strange attractiveness. Anyway, Lacey was a very conceptual piece decided to work with a new set designer, Tanuj Kohli, who, again, I found through Cynthia. I think Patsy designed the lights for the play. Basically, we bisected 666 King Street West. One half of the theatre was Canadian winter (bleak white translucent floor and panels) and the other half was Brazilian summer (a South American bar). In Act One, everything was bright and cold and harsh, and in Act Two the audience sat in the bar and the cute boys were all over them, sitting in their laps and such. I wanted to make the audience feel very distinctly the difference between love in a cold and a hot climate. The play got great reviews, but no one came to see it. I was very discouraged. It was the first rough patch in my love affair with the gay community. (There would be many more.) But this was the first time that I knew I had created a fascinating, moving piece, very avant-garde (based on a Canadian poet!), only to find that it was greeted with complete indifference by Toronto fags. Looking back on it, I think this was the beginning of the

gradual decline in support for Canadian theatre. When I began working in the late '705, there was still a great deal of enthusiasm around the idea of "Canadian" work. The newspapers lionized people like Paul Thompson, Bill Glassco, and Ken Gass. Critics analyzed their work and the different theatre "movements" of the Toronto alternative scene. Something happened during the '8os that was, I think, a part of the whole Reagan Era. People became more concerned with money. Whether or not you were making money became the decisive factor in whether you would get public funding and a major factor in whether your theatre received publicity. Gone was the influence of the easygoing '6os, when all one needed to get by was noble intentions. With all the talk in the newspapers about welfare cases, anybody who received government money was suspect — although everyone ignored the fact that profit businesses also get government grants! Arts councils started asking us whether we were "accountable" — if we had a good administration. And if our box office was enough to support the company. It happened gradually. But soon after I entered the theatre world, the mood began to change. Paul Thompson left Theatre Passe Muraille, for instance, and they stopped doing their "seed shows," which was a major setback for Toronto theatre. Before, anybody who had a great idea and was doing a play anywhere in Toronto could get "seed" money. The money for Lana, came from seed. Clarke Rogers, the new artistic director, tried to continue the Paul Thompson tradition of supporting lots of new Canadian work, but his efforts made him unpopular as arts councils demanded a bigger bang for their buck. Then, at the end of the '8os, the mega-musical arrived. The small audiences for Lacey might have been symptomatic of something else, too. A new "Gay Disease" — GRID — had been discovered in New York in 1981. The name was changed to AIDS, but people still thought of it as a gay disease. Then people started getting sick and dying in Toronto, too — it wasn't just contained, far away, in New York City. Perhaps it's selfish and a bit stupid of me to wonder why gay people didn't come to see my little play — the fact is that they were beginning to succumb to the terror of AIDS. I don't want to underestimate the effect that AIDS had on myself or anyone else in those days. For me, it was awful because only three years earlier I had joyfully come out. Was my happiness to be cut short, then? The news scared me and I knew, quite consciously, that I had to fight off feelings

69

of guilt. It had taken me 28 years to come out, and now, suddenly, being gay was dangerous. And this was at a time when I was becoming unabashedly promiscuous. With the affairs with Glenn and Christopher definitely over, I spent a lot of time looking for love in all the wrong places. I was always out at the baths or the bars, usually stoned. And there was a succession of boys. What they had in common was their physical resemblance to Glenn. Usually that meant curly hair, hairy legs, and a lean, muscled body. It was mostly about hair, actually. Looking back on it now, it's very sad that I was so determined to focus all of what I lovecl about Glenn into the image of his body. I hadn't only been in love with his body, and yet the futility of finding another Glenn meant that I was searching, in vain, for someone who looked exactly like him. Just like James Stewart in Vertigo. What was agonizing was the possibility that I might be forced to stop looking. In 1981, for us in Toronto, AIDS was just a terrifying rumour. It certainly frightened me, but I didn't really believe it was a serious disease that could affect me until sometime in 1984. Perhaps I was naive (or stupid). Mainly, I didn't want to believe it was serious. Like many gay men, I didn't want it to cramp my style. But I was certainly frightened, and now and then experienced AIDS anxiety (the fear may have been a component of my anxiety attack after leaving Shaw). By the time I wrote Lacey, I entertained the fantasy that it might be my last play. That went on for quite a while. Until about 1989 I imagined that each play I wrote might be my last. It certainly added a new urgency to my work, if not to my life. In those first years, when all we knew was that there might be danger in "mucous membranes," regular attacks of fear and guilt were commonplace. ("Oh my God, did I come in contact with a mucous membrane last night? Have I got it?") So, AIDS and the declining interest in not-for-profit theatre were having an effect both on me and on the audience. The inaugural Canadian Poetry Onstage in 1983 also seemed to prove that interest in Buddies was waning. This, in addition to Rhubarb! and my own productions, was intended to be an annual Buddies event. The idea was to dramatize Canadian poetry. For instance, I acted in a play directed by Richard Shoichet based on a prose poem by Christopher Dewdney, and Robert Scott directed a piece based on the poetry of David McFadden. At

one point, Eldon Garnet did some poetic visual work, and Jim Millan directed a piece based on Susan Musgrave's poems. But Canadian Poetry Onstage wasn't very popular. It seemed to me that it was time to make some changes at Buddies. I felt that I was in an artistic rut: my plays followed a pretty predictable structure and form. I see now that the structure of these early plays had a lot to do with my feeling that I was a prematurely old gay man (having come out of the closet so late). The plays were always about a gay poet and the boys that he loved, and the boys always (like Glenn) rejected him. I was tired of using the same structure over and over, and I thought it was time to try something different. With Buddies, too. The company, at this time, was primarily a one-man operation. For a couple of years I had hired Paul Leonard as a publicist. But because we had Wendy Dawson as administrator for the Theatre Centre, I felt that we didn't need a separate Buddies administrator. Basically, I handled everything, sometimes from my own apartment (though Paul had an office at 666 King Street West for a while). It didn't seem strange to me that Buddies was me, and no one else. There were lots and lots of people involved with the company, and the company was associated with all sorts of other groups at the Theatre Centre, but there was no permanent staff except for myself. I took the hits and experienced all the anxiety. I began to think, in fact, that criticism of Buddies was criticism of me. There was a small board made up of Christopher, Peter Day, and Lawrence Bennet, but basically we just had pleasant dinners and talked about how nice it would be to raise some money for the company. No, Buddies was me. By the end of 1984, Buddies' funding was becoming more stable. It received regular operating grants, and I was able to quit my job at the bookstore. Ironically, however, I felt that audiences might be tiring of my work. The splintering of the Theatre Centre continued when Theatre Autumn Leaf left: there didn't seem to be enough companies to pay the rent anymore at 666 King Street West. The Poor Alex Theatre became available, so Nightwood, Buddies, and AKA moved to Brunswick Avenue. The first thing the new Theatre Centre did was remove all the seats. This may or may not have been a mistake, but none of us could imagine working in a proscenium theatre. Anyway, with the seats gone, I decided to try something new. I would write a play which, though inspired by the life of a poet,

71

didn't have any of the poet's poetry in it. It would be a play with a plot (though, of course, a somewhat fractured one); a romance between two poets, rather than a play about a poet and his boys. I'd write the whole thing, and I would be brave enough to put my name on it. It was now doubly nerve-racking. Radiguet was the first Buddies production that credited me as author. So not only was I completely identified with Buddies, but my writing was going to be open to criticism. I hoped the play would be a change of pace and would bring back audiences. The play was inspired by the love affair between Jean Cocteau and Raymond Radiguet. I asked Mary Kerr, who had designed Desert Song at Shaw, to design it, and Jennifer Phipps, one of my favourite actors at Shaw, to play Cocteau's mad mother as well as a loony poet friend of Cocteau's. Alan Rosenthal would play Cocteau, and a very pretty and talented young discovery named Edward Roy would play Radiguet. To make a long story short, the play turned out to be a bit of a mishmash. It failed to buoy what I saw as my sagging career, and just brought on more anxiety. One of the big problems was Alan Rosenthal. The rest of the cast was great. Jennifer Phipps is a kind of mad actor. Very inspired. She works instinctually, but makes every moment onstage real. She can do anything. She loved my play and the work, and threw herself into the piece with a passionate fury. Edward Roy was full of talent but completely undisciplined. I dealt with that and he worked out fine. But Alan Rosenthal — well, one of the big problems was that he wasn't a homosexual. I know that sounds like a horrible thing to say. But I felt that Alan deceived me about things — whether by accident or on purpose, I don't know. I knew that he wasn't gay, but that I still wanted him to play Cocteau. Over and over again I asked him if he had any reservations about playing a gay character or about kissing Eddie. (I, of course, couldn't imagine how anyone could have reservations about kissing Eddie. He was so beautiful!) I warned him that he would have to kiss Eddie and touch him all over (except the genitals). But that he didn't have to get naked. Now, I'd worked with straight actors before, and it had sometimes been awkward. But I always respected their limits and made sure that they didn't feel like they were being forced to do anything they weren't comfortable with.

I was specific about what would be required in each scene — down to the details of touching certain body parts. But it's awful to have to say things like, "I'm sorry . . . but you have to kiss another guy." That is, when every fibre of your being is asking, "Why should it be so fucking difficult?" Anyway, Alan knew his responsibilities and accepted them. But during rehearsal he was very inhibited and having a terrible time. I finally confronted him and he admitted that it was difficult for him. Frankly, he never got over his discomfort, and it was a big impediment to the production. Then there was Mary Kerr's set. In many ways it was absolutely perfect. Like a gigantic Cocteau drawing — white on black, drawn by hand. Very stylish, and completely French. But it was also incredibly overpowering. Mary Kerr is an artist, a sculptor almost, and sometimes her designs can overpower the plays diey contain. Put all these difficulties together and you have the recipe for a resounding flop. Mix in a weird audience configuration — they were forced to sit on two sides of a runway and stare at each other — and you've added another dangerous ingredient. When you add a dash of Hillar Liitoja (he'd become a friend of mine), who did his own performance on opening night, you've got a toxic mix. Hiilar is a very theatrical character. He used to come to openings in a bathrobe and laugh and shout whenever the mood took him. Urjo Kareda even barred him from the Tarragon Theatre around this time. When he was enjoying himself, he might shout "YES! YES! YES!" I guess he was being spontaneous. Hillar can be an enormously strange-looking person. When he's silent, or viewed in dim light, he's attractive in a slender, bearded, Estonian sort of way. But in cruel daylight, his elfin face, fiendish eyes, and devilish grin can be both terrifying and irritating. In his opening-night bathrobe he can look like a spindly renegade inmate from a mental institution. On die opening night of Radiguet, Hillar slapped his hairy thigh and howled in all the wrong places. And, unfortunately, no one laughed with him. Afterwards, my mother said to me, "Who was that awful man?' All in all, it was one of the most dreadful openings I've ever had. Then came the run. Bad reviews and no audiences at all. I'd never ha that combination before. And what compounded my depression and confusion was that Christopher was very proud of me. He thought that by hiring

73

Shaw types like Mary Kerr and Jennifer Phipps I'd really "arrived." My arrival felt like a dull dmd. I asked him for advice, though, and he said a very interesting thing. "Maybe you're asking too much of your audience." It was irritating for me to hear that. I'd always thought that it was my job to challenge the audience. But then Christopher explained himself: "Maybe it's a bit much for them to get the radical content and the radical form at the same time. Couldn't you just hit them with one or the other?" This was an important idea, one that was to torture me for some time. Christopher was right, I had always thrown radical sexual politics — boys fucking boys, men fucking boys, fucking fucking fucking — right in the audience's face. No shame, no guilt. Just positive images of gay sexuality, frank and clear (but not clean). At the same time, I thought it was important to challenge the audience's concept of plot and narrative by frustrating their need for both. It was a theory that I was just beginning to articulate at the time. But I felt — from hanging out with Cynthia and Hillar — that it wasn't enough just to be radical in content. If you really wanted to shake people up, you had to be radical in form as well. The medium is, after all, the message. If you want to change people, you have to fundamentally change the way they see — not just ask them to think differently. You must have a fundamental effect on their tools of cognition. So I was of two minds on the issue — and I am still today. On the one hand, I hate the idea of pandering to people's needs. But theatre is, after all, a public and very philistine performing art. People pay money to be satisfied, not to have a bad time. In this age of videos and computer games, they might as well stay home. Why confound them, make them uncomfortable, make it difficult? Wasn't it possible to lead people and entertain them at the same time? To challenge them but give them some pleasure? This was the question that I wrestled with for the rest of my tenure at Buddies. And I still haven't solved it. My work since Radiguet (subsequent to Christophers advice) has swungng. like a pendulum between giving 'em what they want — sugar-coating the message with charm (The Dressing Gown, Drag Queens on Trial, Drag Queensns. in Outer Space, The Postman Rings Once, Lola Starr Builds Her Dream House,

My Night with Tennessee, Suzie Goo: Private Secretary, Play Murder) — and shocking 'em and shaking 'em — with ejaculations that take no prisoners (The Whore's Revenge, Ban This Show, An Investigation into the Strange Case of

the Wildboy, In Which Pier Paolo Pasolini Sees His Own Death in the Face of a Boy, More Divine, Jim Dandy). My next play marked the beginning of a new era at Buddies and in my life. It was a time of extreme sex, extreme growth, extreme anxiety, and extreme success, and the birth of what I call "the charm factory." It all started with The Dressing Gown.

75

2 Living Buddies

I think I should start by telling you about the two Davids. David Pond and David MacLean entered my life around this time. I met both of them at 666 King Street West. David MacLean was a handsome blonde boy hanging out at some sort of theatre party. (If you want to see what David looked like at the time, watch the bar scenes in the movie Outrageous very closely — he was an extra, the beautiful, grinning blonde kid.) He was witty and handsome and very creative. I fell for him immediately. But he didn't want to have sex with me, so we became friends. At the time, he had a very strange relationship with money — that is, he never had any, and he had a tendency to borrow — so this put our relationship on edge. What was good about our friendship was that David was a complete queen. I had always been somewhat effeminate (when I was young, people always used to say that I "talked with my hands"), but David was my first friend who was an actual drag queen. He dressed up as a girl and looked even more beautiful than he did as a boy. He did a wonderful and very convincing Marilyn Monroe. I was captivated by his stories about being a drag queen, and his stories about being rejected by straight-acting gay boys. His experiences mirrored my own in some ways. I was gradually beginning to understand the gay community, and realizing that sometimes when I was rejected as a romantic or sexual partner it was because I wasn't "manly" enough. (Being such a big guy, people often expected me to be very manly.) Christopher Newton loved drag queens, and I think that was partly why he had loved me. But Christopher was an exception; most gay men his age detested drag queens. So I could identify with Davids stories in which he painted the drag queens as the lowest of the low in the gay community. The other David was David Pond. I remember meeting him first during Pasolini/Pelosi. He was in the bathroom with his boyfriend, arguing so loudly that people had to go in and calm them down. And they were discussing my

play! I think his boyfriend disliked it while David defended it. Anyway, I befriended David and Dale Bolivar (sometimes we called them Chip "n Dale). They were good friends with a young skinhead dyke named Gwen Bartleman. Dale, Gwen, and David had a pretty crazy lifestyle; they did lots of drugs and lived in crazy apartments over stores. David was always collecting things from the garbage and creating something strange from them. Pond's talent and intelligence weren't literary. He was street-smart, and he'd been a hooker — he had great stories about sleeping with politicians on the cruisy hill when he lived in Ottawa. It's hard to describe David Pond, actually. Let's just say he was a very generous, sweet punk kid. I knew that I was a little bit in love with him. Later, after he broke up with Dale, we became on-again, off-again lovers. That's die only time I've ever had a relationship like that with anyone. I think I was somewhat of a mentor for him, and our friendship sometimes spilled over into sex. He was very supportive of my work. Besides, David Pond was a slut. So, suddenly, my two best friends were a drag queen and an ex-hooker. And they were quite competitive for my affections. David MacLean could never see what I saw in David Pond and David Pond would always sneer at David MacLean. But these friendships had an effect on my work, though it would not be felt for a while. I decided, however, to involve them in my first production at the Poor Alex, called The Dressing Gown. The Dressing Gown was a direct result of my talks with Christopher. The goal was to produce a play that would be challenging in content but accessible in structure. I completely abandoned my previous structures based on the "poet and his boys" model. It was my goal to write something that would appeal to a general audience and yet contain some radical ideas. I chose to base the play on Arthur Schnitzler's Let Ronde. (Many others have used this structure — most recently, Canadian filmmaker Jeremy Podeswa in his film Eclipsed) La Ronde is a wonderful play, a series of two-character vignettes all based on the act of sex. La Ronde s gimmick is that the scenes spread out like venereal disease. Of the two characters in each scene, only one character moves off to interact with another character in the next scene. And on and on it goes. Until the play comes full circle ("la ronde") — back to the initial character. Schnitzler's La Ronflewa.s very shocking for its time, partly because the characters were supposed to be having sex during the little blackouts in each scene, and partly because the play was so brutally honest. Everybody is

~n

unfaithful to somebody in the play, and everyone lies to someone about love. La Ronde seemed to me to be a particularly gay structure for a play. Because homosexuality is despised by many in our culture, lots of gay men are closeted, or lie, or have sleazy, anonymous sex. So, a plot about men who hop from bed to bed, and lie about it, is particularly appropriate to our community. When I wrote The Dressing Gown, I was fresh from my first hurts in love (Glenn and Christopher) and fresh from being hurt by the gay community (because they didn't come to see Lacey or Radiguet). So the play was a critique of gay life, a kind of revenge fantasy. It's fascinating for me to look back on this period now, because again I seemed to be writing in contradiction to my life experience. Earlier, I'd written about promiscuity without experiencing it, and now I was writing a critique of the gay community while I was moving into a very promiscuous period. The Dressing Gown is about the superficiality and destructiveness of promiscuity. In some ways it's a very moralizing piece, and that's why I have mixed feelings about it now. I certainly renounced it later, and in the introduction to the published version of the play (1989), I take issue with my own "essentialist" notions of gender in the original work. The play seemed to suggest that gay men were somehow born overly sexual and cold and hurtful. One might think the author's opinion was that gay men were a rare, perhaps evil, promiscuous breed. I know that I didn't mean it to come out that way. Originally it was a personal expression of my own hurt, but because The Dressing Gown is a critique of gay culture, it's easy to see how it could also be seen as prescient in terms of AIDS hysteria. One of the characters gets sick from injecting drugs with dirty needles; there's also a suggestion that he's sick from just having too much sex. David Pond stage-rnanaged the piece and David MacLean starred as the effeminate middle-class fag (which made for some backstage tension!). The original production featured touching music by David Sereda, David MacLean who starred as the boy ("Tim"), and also featured the irrepressible Grant Cowan and Martha Cronyn, a frail, tender actor (for whom I wrote the part of "Martha"). Patsy Lang designed a very ingenious set that was able to change Into at least six different rooms quickly and easily. The play was a huge hit, and one of two of my plays to be nominated for a Chalmers Award. We remounted it later that same year. I found the success of The Dressing Gown both intoxicating and frustrating.

I invited Christopher to the opening night — I really wanted him to see what I had done, because, after all, it had been inspired by his suggestion. I was so proud of myself for having written something that I thought challenged the audience and yet was presented in a pleasing and accessible form. Christopher was sardonic, which disappointed me. "This is your big fyater la bourgeoisie piece," he said, gazing around at the middle-class gay crowd. I didn't know what that meant. He explained: "You hit on something that middle-class types can really identify with." I couldn't tell how he felt about that. Ultimately, my own feelings, too, were mixed. Robert Crew's review is what angered me the most. On the one hand, it was an incredible rave, and probably the review that helped most to fill the house. But I will never forget the headline. It said: "Dressing Gown rises above limits of subject." I alluded to this in my rant about critics earlier, but I think it deserves a second mention. The subject matter of my play was gay sex. It was astounding to me that the reviewer could be so frank in his homophobia. To this day, if I were to confront him on this subject, I think that Robert Crew would look me right in the eye and say, "I don't write the headlines — and after all I gave you a rave." But surely you can understand why the headline would infuriate me. Can you imagine a reviewer writing about a black or Jewish play that the playwright had managed to "rise above the subject matter"? Well, no, of course not. We respect Jewish culture and black culture and it would be racist to suggest that these cultures would not be suitable subjects for a play. Unfortunately, the tone of Crew's review supported the headline. He felt compelled to tell readers of a family newspaper that my play rose above the stagnant and disgusting subject of homosexuality. Yes, that's what he was implying. And that implication inspired the headline. I wasn't sure, even at the time, if I wanted to rise above my own subject matter. The result of my attempt to climb out of the failure of Radiguet^-as, an inspirational talk with Christopher. It's no surprise that Christopher — one of the most charming men who's ever walked the earth — inspired The Dressing Gown. This was the birth of my own "charm factory." Let me explain. Commercial theatre is nothing less than a charm factory. In the hands of a master of the comedy of manners (such as Noel Coward, Joe Orton, or Oscar Wilde) the charm required to keep an audience pleased is married with deep observations on the human condition. Most playwrights

79

are not Noel Coward or Joe Orton, however, and instead of charm being an inevitable by-product of the playwright's wit and world view, these people (Terrence McNally, Neil Simon, William Goldman, Alan Aykbourne, Norm Foster) mechanically supply their plays with the requisite number of jokes per minute. This keeps the audiences happy. But everything else suffers for the sake of laughs. I don't know if you've ever sat in a Broadway theatre audience, but the tension — whether the audience is there for comedy or drama — is palpable. I don't mean moral, emotional, or sexual tension. The tension rippling through these mostly middle-aged audiences can be summed up like this: "I paid good money for this show and dragged my old arthritic arse out of bed to see it, so I expect laughs." I can't say exactly how many belly laughs, chuckles, and giggles a successful Broadway play must provide every hour, but I can guarantee if you sat down with a big Broadway producer, or with one of the playwrights I mentioned above, they could tell you. For me, the success of The Dressing Gown was a signal that Buddies might run the danger of turning into a "charm factory." I knew that most of the laughs came out of character and situation, not just from jokes. But there was the unfortunate "Sudbury" joke. At one point, an awkward-looking boy is asked where he comes from. He says one word — "Sudbury." It was the biggest laugh of the play, and I resented it. It reminded me of a moment in Tom Jones when one of the characters was caught running out from behind a bush pulling up his pants. "It's cheap," Christopher said, "but people love that!" The "Sudbury" moment was the same kind of cheap joke, and I felt guilty. But looking back on The Dressing Gown, it's very clear to me that it was one of the biggest hits of my career. I had written it to engage the middle class, and I had succeeded. In the meantime, I was aware that the temptation to please this audience could be intoxicating. The Dressing Gown utilized another dramaturgical technique that's a staple in commercial theatre. The idea is to give them raw sex and then turn the tables at the end — it's a kind of emotional sado-masochistic experience. This is the secret of most Victorian plays and operas. If you want middle-class types to enjoy your work, here's the formula: make sure that most of the action is lurid, then, just before die end, the lead (the one having all the sexual exploits) has an epiphany and discovers God (or at least decides to change his/her ways). The end should be a renunciation of sex and an affirmation of the importance of love (and, if possible, family). The audience has a great time. Most of the playe paly.

is spent getting aroused by what they're really interested in (sex), while the end of the play expiates their guilt. This Victorian formula for writing commercial theatre always works. It's one of the reasons I have problems with Brad Eraser's very funny play Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love. It's a formula Victorian play, like The Dressing Gown. I haven't written another lurid play with a moral since. In fact, it was my fear of the "charm factory" that inspired me to write my next, very different, production. The Dressing Gowns success caused me to rethink my writing. How, after all, could I write another charming, feel-good play that made sure to "rise above" its subject matter? That seemed like a betrayal of all that was gay. I didn't want to rise above my subject matter. Maybe, in fact, I wanted to fall right into, hunker down, and wallow in my subject matter. So, in a way, Robert Crew inspired my next play: Drag Queens on Trial. I know I've trashed quite a number of writers here for being too charming or too commercial. So what playwrights do I like? I'm not a big fan of American theatre — it's too literal, too frothy most of the time, and pretentious when trying to be serious. Christopher Durang is one of my favourites, as well as John Guare. I like Nicky Silver, too. All these writers have a wacky, campy style, and yet deliver touching, human stories. I choose Tennessee Williams over Arthur Miller. I think they represent two opposite approaches. Williams is evocative and intuitive; a poet of the theatre. Miller is didactic and simplistic. I find David Marnet very irritating, though I think he's a brilliant stylist who can capture the rhythms of straight, masculine speech. In fact, when he parodies heterosexual men, he's at his best. When he's trying to be deep, he's ponderous. When it comes to Canadian playwrights, I've always been a big fan of Michel Tremblay. His characters are real, and moving without being sentimental. He's another true poet. But I'm interested in stylists — writers who pay a very particular attention to the rhythm and character of language. Most Canadian playwrights (other than the ones we encouraged at Buddies) are steeped in naturalism. Their rhythms are less based on style than on recreating realistic speech. I was very fond of Bryan Wade's Pinteresque Blitzkrieg when I was younger. But my favourite Canadian playwright is undoubtedly Stewart Lemoine. Not many know his work; it's been performed almost exclusively in Alberta, except for a couple of productions in

81

Toronto (including The Vile Governess, produced by Buddies in 1987). Lemoine's stuff is campy and hilarious. He is a true stylist, choosing a different genre for each play. And his stylistic loyalty to the genres he picks creates extreme characters in extreme situations, and startling revelations about our very human condition. My favourite plays of all are comedies of manners. I love Private Lives, The Importance of Being Earnest, and What the Butler Saw — they are masterpieces. What is a comedy of manners? It's a play in which the verbal wit of the characters is of central importance. The playwright juxtaposes two sets of people, the "ins" and the "outs." The "in" characters are those who possess the verbal wit to keep them on top; the "outs" are exposed as boring and superficial because they lack humour. I love a world where humour is the calling card and the measure of a person. Of course, on die surface, it seems like silly, apolitical writing. But it's not. The Importance of Being Earnest and What the Butler Saw are two of the most political plays you will ever see. They completely undermine marriage and family and all the politest hypocrisies of bourgeois culture. So there is an angry underside to the comedy of manners, and that's what makes it substantial. I should mention, too, that I also want very much to like Edward Albee's work, because it's the closest thing to American comedy of manners there is. My problem with his work is that he's gay and he should be writing gay plays. Not all gay writers should, or need to. Tennessee Williams wrote badly when he tried to write about his gay life. But Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would be a great comedy of manners if Albee had openly written about two homosexuals. It's a little-known fact that Bette Davis wouldn't play the role of Martha because she said it was a part for a drag queen. She was right. The language in the great comedies of Coward, Orton, and Wilde is consistently theatrical, but it also has the terse, compressed effect of poetry. The world view of these plays seems, on the surface, to be sunny, but it's not. There's a dark side to them, just as there's a dark side to Shakespeare's comedies. That's my sense of life. Sunny on top, with lots of troubled waters underneath. I want to go to the theatre and laugh, but also be touched by the depths of anger and sadness. I think that Chekhov is the greatest playwright of the I9th century, and that his plays are comedies, although they sometimes don't appeal to me as much as comedies of manners do because they are less brittle and stylized.

If I'm such a fan of these classic, traditional plays, you might wonder why I don't try and write in that mode myself. Well, I think that structure is incredibly important. In fact, to me, it's the only important thing. A writer has to hang his/her ideas and instincts on the perfect structure. If the structure is wrong, then the content will sag like an old beanbag chair. If I were to set out to write a modern comedy of manners and merely copy old styles, I would not succeed. But in my own way, I have created many charming plays (The Dressing Gown, Drag Queens in Outer Space, Lola Starr Builds Her Dream House, Suzie Goo: Private Secretary, Play Murder, The Emotionalists) that use wit and the clash of different verbal styles — and lifestyles — to try and unmask the cruelty and sadness beneath. I don't know if I've succeeded. But in my best work, I'm always trying. The success of The Dressing Gown (my first comedy-of-manners hit) was ironic, considering my personal life. I guess you could call that a comedy, if you look at it all in a certain light. There I was, desperately searching for the soul of Glenn in the bodies of a myriad of boys. David MacLean had rejected me sexually. Now and then David Pond and I had some refreshing intimacy, but from 1983 to 1988 I had a series of lovers, all the while making regular trips to the baths. There was Kevin, and John, and Christopher, and Spencer — to name the most significant "boyfriends." All were young and boyish. Only Spencer betrayed any embryonic artistic leanings. But none of them were enough for me. In fact, I was out searching for another Mr. Right almost every night. Or was I just using Glenn's rejection as an excuse? Certainly you'd think that by 1985 I would have gotten over him. And to some degree I had. But I still had Glenn in my mind as the model of the ideal boy for me. Also, my Puritanism hadn't completely disappeared. Where was the little schoolboy browner whose briefcase was always being stolen? Where was die boy who had chaste lunches on the lawn with another closeted boy, unable to express his feelings? On the outside, of course, he was gone — all but wiped away. But on the inside, the guilty, puritanical child was still very much alive. I have no doubt that I justified my promiscuity by mooning over Glenn, believing I was looking for him all over town. I think it's key that one of the funniest scenes in The Dressing Gown involves a couple who have an "open" relationship. One of them is a tough leather guy, and the other is an effeminate queen. The play makes fun of the

83

queens hypocrisy — he brings home a hooker and tries to bed the boy, all the while denying his own promiscuity. In 1985 I detested open relationships. Nowadays I see open relationships as one of the most important contributions gay culture can make to straight society. It's a way for people to get all the love they need, and all the sexual variety they want. Sure, there can be jealousy problems — but kind, honest people can (believe it or not) work those out. Of course, not everyone is suited to an open relationship. But very few people are suited to monogamy. Even though I was at my sluttiest, I still had fantasies of being monogamous. I think a lot of gay men (and people in general) make this mistake. Certainly, since I chose emotionally unavailable men — most of them at that time were under 25 — there wasn't much chance of finding Mr. Right! I was probably afraid of monogamy, as much as I yearned for it. After all, my only experience with monogamy was as a heterosexual, when having sex was a duty. Anyway, at this time, / was a hypocrite. And it was causing tension in my emotional life. On the one hand I denounced open relationships, and on the other hand I was searching for love — all the while being incredibly promiscuous. The success of The Dressing Gown had its practical side effects. I was able to hire a general manager for Buddies, and to rent an office at the Poor Alex. Buddies, after its first big commercial success, was becoming a more "professional" operation. It was very frightening. Suddenly Buddies wasn't just a solitary venture. I think the fact that I was getting some recognition as a writer made it possible for me to open the Buddies door and invite in outside support. I had mixed feelings about this. It's true I had more free time to think about artistic things. But I also had more time to worry that I had less control. The first general manager of Buddies was Chris Bye, a dapper young gay who worked at the Toronto Theatre Alliance. Christopher Newton and the other gay men on the board were impressed with his dark good looks and brusque, articulate manner. He was a lot of fun and we were friends. Chris and I worked well together for a couple of years and then had a monumental falling out. One of the problems was that we had difficulty communicating; another was my own insecurity about Buddies literally "getting away from me." I'm a bit of a control freak.

Preparing for battle with the homophobes, at aee 8.

At 20 I thought these would make good publicity photos. Seeing them today, I just want to ask myself out on a date.

Me, at my most heterosexual (27). Me, age 25, with my longtime girlfriend, Paula. Cute, huh?

Sally, me, and mom.

My dear sister Lydia and me, having Fu.n

A recent snapshot of Lydia, Mom, and me.

Christopher Newton as a young man.

Me, my Dad, and Sue Golding at the opening of Tom Jones. I think my smile says it all.

Working on Tom Jones at Christopher's house

Poetry performance:, 1981. Is this a flaming faggot, or what?

I was feeling like a Russian movie star that day.

A break in reharsals for cavefy.

I.n New York City, pretending to be Lou Pveed. (I'd been out for a year.)

Surrounded by the adoring cast of Cauofy. (That's Patsy with the camera.)

My first love - Glenn.

Ken McDougall as Baudelaire. He hated this picture.

The cast for an early remount of ART/RAT including Jim Millan (left) and Ken McDougall (right).

Angelo Pedari and Daniel Airman in Pasolini/Pelosi.

Doug Millar plants a juicy one on me in a short-lived video spoof of my life called Love for a Stranger.

Most of the cast of Cauofy: Mark Christmann, Jim Millan, Mark Bastien, Neil Cadger.

Kim Renders and Christopher Thomas inMurder/Lover.

Kim possessed by Patti Smith.

At first, though) having a general manager gave me the security to leave the Theatre Centre. My decision to leave had to do with three things. First, there was the Theatre Centre's location. The Poor Alex was very small, which limited production possibilities (I think those limitations hurt me in visual productions like Radiguei). Second, because we had been producing Rhubarb! at the Theatre Centre for so many years, people often mistakenly assumed it was a Theatre Centre event. This upset me. It seemed that we were both limited and overshadowed by the Theatre Centre. Finally, our initial association with the other four companies had been about getting advice in our quest for government support, which we now had. So we left — on very good terms — and became a completely nomadic company. Having Chris around also led me to write the play that would prove to be my greatest hit: Drag Queens on Trial, which was inspired by Chris Bye's hilarious tale of a trip to court over a parking ticket. In a lot of ways Drag Queens on Trial was a theatrical rebellion. Against The Dressing Gown. Against Christopher Newton. Against Bob Crew. And against everything else I identified as mainstream. I had just read Queer Theatreby Stefan Brecht (a nephew of Bertolt). It's a history of drag performers and filmmakers in the USA. It's also a cogent analysis of the rebellion that fired John Waters, Jack Smith (Flaming Creatures), and Charles Ludlam. I had seen Pink Flamingos, and through Peter Chapman I had heard about Jack Smith. My knowledge of drag performance was pretty much secondhand — mainly through David MacLean's stories — but this book gave me a theoretical approach. I could understand that Genet's queens were, in fact, rebelling against a whole society that supported the status quo, that drag undermines patriarchal power structures. At the time, I remember thinking that Toronto "The Good" needed a kick in the ass — that it should have its own drag queen theatre. Writing the play was thoroughly enjoyable, but scary. I kept Christopher's critique in mind, and gave the play an accessible structure and form. I certainly didn't think there was any danger of it becoming too "charming" — after all, I reasoned, the subject matter was sure to offend. It was divided into three parts, each centred on one drag queen's "testimony." I wrote the part of Lana Lust for David MacLean. The character was inspired by all his stories of being a downtrodden effeminate boy. But we had a fight right before the play was to start rehearsals and I had to recast. David just seemed

85

too flighty and it was impossible to trust him with such an important role. I remember lying on a patio somewhere with Camille Mitchell and talking with her about my new play. Camille was always staying in hotels, and she would invite Vancouver director Larry Lillo and I over for a drink and to use the pool. Camille and I had a lot of fun "clearing patios." We'd sit out there in our bathing suits soaking up the sun and dishing the dirt. Our language must have been very X-rated because suddenly people would start leaving. Camille would just raise her cocktail and say, "Congratulations, Sky, we just cleared another patio!" I think at the time we might have been talking about her girlfriend's new studmuffin — a certain well-endowed young Canadian actor. (David Elliott later moved on to star in a very popular TV show, Jag). Camille was telling me how her girlfriend described the young star's "equipment." She said, "He's ruined me for other men!" I'm sure it was that kind of talk that separated the true sun worshippers from the dilettantes. Anyway, in addition to dishing the dirt on that patio, I remember talking to Camille about Drag Queens on Trial. I respected her opinion because she was such a marvellous actress. I had even written a small play for her called Dark Glasses, which was performed at the Studio Theatre at YPT for a couple of weeks with some success. Later the same season, Camille got the female lead in Of Mice and Men. Gina Mallet — in the kind of characteristic review that made her name so terribly appropriate — called Camille a "cement Lana Turner." One weeping phone call and I was at Camille's side. She was holed up in her hotel room — the only person I know who always rented a suite — her petite form swathed in a chic robe, dark glasses covering her sore eyes, a towel wrapped around her curly flaming red hair. "Sky, am I a cement Lana Turner? Am I? Tell me I'm not! I just can't get those terrifying words out of my brain!" Fuck. Critics can be so cruel! I went to Camille for advice because I was very nervous about the possibility of casting three unknowns in Drag Queens on Trial And two of them had very little professional acting experience. Doug Millar was a young actor I found at auditions. Leonard Chow I knew from the Shaw Festival, where he had been an extra. Only Kent Staines had experience, and even he was very reluctant to take the part of Lana Lust, fearing for his reputation as a professional. Christopher had told me that to run a professional company, I had to hire "real" actors. What to do? When I asked Camille, she was as steady as a rock. "Sky, if you believe in what you're doing, maybe, in this case,

you'll have to ignore Christopher's ideas." That advice is one of the reasons I dedicated the play to her. Casting was one of the big risks. Every year I inched forward, and often succeeded in casting more well-known, experienced actors in my plays. But what big Canadian actor would want to be in a play called Drag Queens on Trial? Casting very sexual gay plays was always a problem. When I had started to cast The Dressing Gown, Greg Campbell refused to play the lead, "Tim," which I had written for him. His agent thought it would hurt his career to be in a gay play. I was very hurt and angry and yelled, "Maybe you should get a. career before you worry about hurting it." (To be fair, these days Greg Campbell does have an acting career, and he does play very gay parts. And when he was older and wiser he agreed to star in Suzie Goo: Private Secretary and enjoyed great success.) So, it never even occurred to me that any "big" actors would want to be in a play about three drag queen hookers on trial for their outrageous lives. And, frankly, after the experience with Greg, I was afraid to ask any big-name actors to do anything. The other fear, of course, was about the play itself. I imagined that I was pretty well sabotaging my career with this outrageous, filthy, frank slice of gay life. I hadn't even told Christopher about it. I knew he loved drag queens, but I'm not too sure how he would have felt watching a play about them. I remember figuring that, after the success of The Dressing Gown, I could afford to take a risk. That became my pattern a couple of years later: to follow a charming, popular success with a confrontational "ejaculation" — something more esoteric. I hated the idea of riding blithely on a success. I was afraid that critics would be offended by rny foul-mouthed piece, but I believed in what it had to say — that the outcast position was, in effect, sacred and holy. I also knew that the gay community had mixed feelings about drag queens — they weren't even allowed in a lot of bars when we first performed the play. (When we tried to do promotion by going into the bars, we had problems just getting in the doors of places like Chaps.) I knew from David MacLean that, especially in the gay community, drag queens were considered the lowest of the low. Gay bars have become incredibly hypocritical. I prefer bathhouses or the gay bars in Europe, almost all of which have backrooms for sex. In North America today, gay bars are mostly places where guys do "S and M" (stand and model). In other words, it's all about going out with your friends, get-

87

ting drunk, giggling, and flirting — just like straight bars! What does give gay bars an edge is that they often play porn films or have drag shows (and sometimes allow sex in the back). In 1985, the only bar that offered drag shows was the Quest, near Yonge and Bloor (it's a straight strip club now). But since the advent of AIDS, drag has become a staple of the gay scene. Why? I think it's partially because drag gives gay men a feeling of community in this time of tragedy. But I also think it's about hypocrisy — gay men can pretend they're going out to bars to see a show rather than to get picked up. In 1985, my favourite bar was Chaps, at Yonge and Isabella. It was a typical, cruisy '8os clone bar. Oh, and here's a short history of recent gay male fashion trends: in the early '8os there was the clone look, then in the late '8os the radical/skinhead look, which was followed by today's preppie/bodybuilder look. What's the "clone" look? Well, it's generally thought to have been inspired by Tom of Finland, a fabulous pornographic cartoonist. You see, in the 'jos — before Tom popularized the butch look — gay men had no masculine aesthetic. Only closet cases ("trade") dressed butch. Gays were recognizable only by the effeminate accessories that they added to their straight male clothing (scarves, etc.). Gay male style was, essentially, effeminate. Then Tom of Finland's hilarious and filthy cartoons burst onto the scene. His erotically caricatured males have unrealistically huge penises and rear ends. And they're usually dressed in some sort of macho drag — usually as cowboys, construction workers, or military types. The constructionworker look is what gradually morphed into the '8os clone. Basically the look consists of cut-off shorts in summer (tight jeans in winter), workboots, heavy socks, a tight T-shirt or tank top, short hair, and a moustache (a necessity). There is also the requisite earring or tattoo. A lot of the hottest guys in Chaps during the '8os sported this look. When I went to Chaps I was serious about getting picked up, which means I would lounge around in dark corners wearing tight T-shirts and pants. I wasn't a full-fledged clone, and I hadn't yet patented my late-'Sos skinhead look (shaved head, workboots, and army pants). Cruising was still taken terribly seriously. AIDS hadn't hit Toronto in a big way, and men went to gay bars looking very masculine, unashamed of their one and only goal: getting laid. If they couldn't pick up someone in a bar, they'd go to the baths. But bars were for cruising, and people weren't ashamed of it. (I love Montreal, where the signs on Ste. Catharine still say "cruising bar.")

Well, you can imagine the effect a bunch of drag queens would have on such an atmosphere. These "clones" were very intense, horny fags. They were trying their best to look straight and masculine, only to have a gaggle of gigantic giggly girls swan in and undercut their butch parade! Though there's more tolerance of drag these days, a lot of gay men still think it's important to be masculine. They devalue effeminate men and make fun of them. They only answer ads for "straight-acting" types. This is something I've never been able to understand. Sexual preference is certainly just that — personal and unexplainable. But I've always been attracted to effeminate boys (and I am one myself). I like what happens when drag queens enter an all-masculine, all-gay atmosphere. They loosen things up. But back then, if I had been in cruising mode and a bunch of queens walked in, I might have felt they were cramping my style. I think the revolutionary concept of the drag queen — the openly sexual, effeminate member of our community — was shaking me up as much as it was shaking up Toronto at the time. Sure, there had always been drag queens. But in the '8os, the image of the macho gay male held sway, and gay men were reluctant to go back to what they saw as the "old days" of swish and lisp. Larry Fineberg was the dramaturge for Drag Queens on Trial and he also gave me a lot of encouragement. I was only really interested in working with a dramaturge who would support me, so I picked a sympathetic gay playwright. He gave me courage. Which is, as I understand it, the customary responsibility of the "dramaturge." In the European tradition, the dramaturge is the person who is most knowledgeable about the text and the author. In some cases, he or she is even expected to explain the text to the author. In other words, he or she is the ultimate sympathetic critic, who treats the text with enormous respect — love, even. This doesn't, of course, mean that the dramaturge is never critical. But the traditional notion of the dramaturge is of someone who starts from a position of enormous respect for the writer, who acknowledges the writer's authority. Because the writer is the one who is connected, in some way, to the muse, the dramaturge respects that instinctual, intuitive link and supports the artist with questions and answers about the text. In Canada, however, the dramaturge is something different. Sometimes

89

it's a failed playwright, sometimes a collective made up of the actors in the play. Often these people sit around a table in a workshop and chew the play over like a ham sandwich. For the most part they're quite ignorant, both in general and of the writer's work in particular. If they're having a bad day — and didn't get properly fucked the night before — they say things like: "I don't like this scene. It bugs me." The obvious danger of having actors do dramaturgical work is that they're generally selfish; they always want more lines for themselves. Most actors are trained in what I call the Shelley Winters School of Dramaturgy. If Shelley wanted a big speech, she'd say to the director, "I'm sorry, but why is this character so bitter? We never get to see why. I think she needs a big speech where she explains why. Perhaps she was molested! Perhaps she was beaten! There's got to be some reason. Let's have her talk about it. May I suggest a big monologue perhaps?" Accordingly, the writer, under pressure, would supply the requisite big speech and the heroine would spill her beans in a completely artificial fashion. From the start, this was my objection to the Tarragon approach to dramaturgy. My opposition started with my early experiences with Bill Glassco, and continued as I myself encouraged young writers. You see, during die mid- to late-'8os, young Toronto playwrights had only two choices if they wanted to develop a play. Sure, Passe Muraille and Factory were producing Canadian work, but Factory had stopped its Brave New Works project and Passe Muraille no longer offered Seed Show money. So Buddies had Rhubarb!, and Tarragon developed a Playwrights' Unit, where young playwrights sat in a small room and mulled over scripts with Urjo Kareda. I'm biased, but I think RhubarbPs process of instant production was better for developing writers. First of all, what I call "The Tarragon Play" always contains a heavy dollop of Shelley Winters dramaturgy. There's always a point in most mainstage Tarragon plays, for instance, where you can see Kareda's heavy hand, when a character steps out and starts to tell their little story of abuse or whatever. And secondly, many Buddies artists worked in both the Tarragon's Unit and our Rhubarb! and found the Tarragon experience stifling. But more on that later. My reservations about Canadian dramaturgy certainly had an effect on the type of writers we encouraged at Rhubarb! The 1985 Rhubarb! at the Poor Alex, for instance, featured works by Christopher Newton, Amanda Hale, Hillar Liitoja, Robert Scott, Geraldine Farrell, Billy Merasty, and Makka Kleist, and they were not all primarily script-based. These pieces were created

either by collective or in rehearsal, or they relied heavily on visual images. Hillar's My Plants Came Alive and We Fell in Love was terrifying and beautiful. At one point, one of the actors climbed into the audience and beat up an actress posing as an audience member. Yes, it was offensive to some. For me, it was an absolutely real and theatrical moment that caused people to ponder the nature of heterosexual sexism. Hillar couldn't have taken his script to Tarragon. There was no script. Christopher Newton's little performance piece consisted of simply reading his favourite letters from one of his ex-boyfriends — who happened to be in prison at the time. Farrell and Bob Scott developed The Affair with a cast that included Ellen-Ray Hennessy. This was one of the first associations Ellen-Ray had with the company. She would become a star at Buddies, and on the alternative scene, a few years later. My sceptical attitude to dramaturgy has encouraged people to speculate that I don't rewrite and, furthermore, don't believe in being critical of my own scripts. Nothing could be more wrong. My own productions always rely on input from actors and designers during rehearsal, so that ultimately the script is the result of some collaboration — a voluntary collaboration between myself and the actors. It happens quite organically. But I don't believe in giving an appointed dramaturge too much authority. Drag Queens on Trial was no exception. Not only did I have the outside support of Camille and Larry, but the actors became one with the work. And I think that's what happens whenever this play is performed. Since its inception, Drag Queens on Trial has been remounted in Chicago (at Bailiwick) and in New York City (at the Courtyard Playhouse), as well as in amateur productions in Vancouver and Montreal. The actors always seem to bond with the work in an almost scary way. In Toronto, it was a tribute to the performers' abilities, and to the play itself, that Doug, Leonard, and Kent became Marlene, Judy, and Lana. They went out at night — to whatever bars would have them — and performed scenes from the play to promote it. They performed tirelessly because they loved the piece. Some of their improvised lines went into the final text; for instance, Kent and Doug devised a little camp battle that was lifted directly from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? ({was so ignorant of drag culture at the time that I didn't even know about the movie.) In fact, I had never appeared in drag publicly before the opening of Drag Queens on Trial. Later, I became known for my drag character, "Jane," but

91

Jane was not born until 1987. In 1985, when I conceived the piece, I had never worn a dress (except as a kid). For opening night, with Chris Bye's help, we managed to rent an old movie theatre on Bloor Street. The judge in the play was a video on the giant screen. Tanuj Kohli's set was simple: the drag queens were cross-examined on the witness stand and then retired to a little dressing room to gossip. Patsy Lang did the lights. I arrived with David Pond as my escort. It was my first experience with drag, and I must have looked a treat. I didn't even apply any foundation (I wouldn't leave the house in drag without foundation these days, but of course I'm much older now!). With David Pond's help, I applied a little rouge and made up my eyes, and plopped a punkish fright wig on my head. It was lovely having my little skinhead boy on my arm and sitting down right in front of the critics. "Well, this is the end of my career," I thought. "But, fuck, this is a funny play. And I'm going to go down in all my flaming glory." The shock was that the critics liked it. They liked it even better than The Dressing Gown. And audiences flocked to see it. Especially straight audiences. What was going on? My analysis of what happened is this: though my goal had been to take people on a frank and honest trip into the lowest depths of gay culture, the humour of die piece and the whole concept of drag actually succeeded in erecting a gossamer wall that made them more comfortable. Once again, almost subconsciously, I had allowed the charm factory to work its magic. But the "charm," ironically, hadn't worked on gay critics. They didn't like Drag Queens at all. I remember being very discouraged by the reviews. As I said, there was lots of hostility in the community towards drag at the time. Gay men had spent the '70$ developing their masculine selves, and many were offended by drag, which they saw as a backward move to effeminacy. And some lesbians found it politically incorrect — they thought that drag queens were making fun of women. So the reviews were guarded in the gay press. I couldn't understand it. How could the gay press have reservations when gay men were flocking to the play and laughing their guts out? And the straight press reacted very differently than I expected. They embraced the piece as an outrageous portrait of society's outcasts. Jay Scott's review in the Globe and Mail compared me to Brecht, Genet, and Mary Renault. This was the first time my work had been taken quite so seriously in a mainstream paper; it was no accident that the

review was by a gay man — but one who had obviously distanced himself from some of the hostility against drag in the gay community. Straight people loved the show. And I'll have to admit that I was a little uncomfortable about this because the gay press had made me feel guilty. Was I really just encouraging the idea that all gay men are silly, effeminate transvestites? I wasn't sure if I was being politically correct. I remember that at the time I didn't consider myself to be a "political" playwright. There was an AIDS message in the piece, but I felt it was part of the subject matter, not the theme. So, despite the success of the piece, I was not satisfied. It seemed to me that the popularity of Judy, Marlene, and Lana had eclipsed the play's message. Perhaps the medium was cushioning the message too much. In Drag Queens on Trial, it turned out that I had taken Christopher Newton's advice almost too literally, at least for my own taste. The play is about one thing: melodrama. The subject matter of the play, though, is AIDS prejudice. On the one hand, the play critiques melodrama as a form, because we are both involved in and distanced from the drag queens' suffering. Lana's final speech, for example, is excessively melodramatic (Scott called it the low point of a fine production) for a reason. 1 want the audience to be overtly conscious of the manipulations of melodrama. They are meant to identify with her plight but laugh at the theatrical conventions with which it is presented. On the other hand, the content of her speech is radical AIDS politics. Lana was saying, in 1985, at the beginning of the most intense period of AIDS hysteria, that AIDS should only be a physical illness and that sex should remain a sacrament, untouched by hate and prejudice. No one seemed to "get" either the critique of melodrama or the AIDS subject matter (the AIDS ideas were, admittedly, ahead of their time). It's interesting that the play's success inspired John Glines to ring me up. Glines made a name for himself in New York by discovering Harvey Fierstein and his play, Torch Song Trilogy, and moving it from off-off-Broadway to Broadway. When I got his call, I was ecstatic. Here was that big break that people always dream about. The producer from the Big Apple was on the phone! "I really enjoyed your play," said Glines. "I'm interested in producing it in New York." "Oh, that's wonderful!" I replied breathlessly. (How was I going to tell everyone? Should I have a "My Show's Going To Be A Broadway Hit" party? My friends would be so impressed!)

93

"I know three drag performers who would be perfect for the leading roles." "That's great!" I replied. (Gee . . . he was already casting!) "But we need to talk about a couple of things. Revisions." My heart sank. "What revisions?" I asked. "Well, just a couple of things. I mean, I love the play. I love the title. The ft fie is just great. And the jokes. Got to keep in those jokes. They're very funny. So we keep the title and the jokes, but we have to get rid of all of that AIDS stuff. Too depressing. Everybody's dying in New York. Nobody wants to hear about dying anymore. Everything has to be up, up, up. People want to see positive stuff. So if we just get rid of the AIDS junk and keep the title and the jokes, then ..." "I'm sorry," I interrupted him. "I can't do that. It just wouldn't be my play any more if I did that." "That's too bad. Well, if you change your mind, give me a call." Jesus. I was so disappointed. But I didn't seriously consider his offer, not even for a second. What would be the point of eviscerating my play for the sake of fame? This was not about idealism. No, it was as if a beautiful disco boy had said to me, "I'm madly in love with you and I want you to be my boyfriend." "Oh, great!" I'd say. But what if the boy added, "The only thing is, you'll have to cut out your heart and live with a transplanted monkey's heart instead!" You'd say no, too. The irony, of course, is that John Glines was completely wrong. AIDS plays such as The Normal Heart and As Is were huge successes on Broadway. Of course, the genre didn't triumph until a few years later, but he was wrong on another count, too: I don't think my play was an AIDS play. I have contempt for them. In my view, AIDS is a metaphor, not a disease. I know you might think that's a crazy thing to say. So, if you can calm down for a moment, I'll explain. Ever since AIDS was first called GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency), I was suspicious. As my friend Rob Johnston says, "How can a virus be crafty enough to tell the gays from the straights?" Because ever since scientists invented the word "homosexuality" in the mid-igth century, gay men have been studied as clinical cases. Homosexuality was first considered a physical illness, and then a mental one. It's very interesting that when homosexuality was dropped from the American Psychiatric Association's

list of mental illnesses back in 1973 there was a promising flowering of gay liberation, which was then followed by a huge backlash. The backlash was spearheaded by Anita Bryant, and climaxed with the AIDS "epidemic" in 1981. Of course, if I say that AIDS is a metaphor, and not a disease, many straights and doctors shake their heads and say, "Oh, that poor Sky Gilbert. He's in denial. Isn't that tragic." Weil, I'm not. I understand that there are lots of diseases that kill lots of people, and that gay men were particularly susceptible to venereal disease, immune system breakdown, and depression in the early '8os. The question is, why? I, and many other AIDS radicals think it's for a combination of reasons. In the '6os the medical establishment offered gay men antibiotics as a cure-all. This was very dangerous. In the early '8os, when I first came out, I knew gay men who took antibiotics all the time so that they could become "immune" to venereal disease. They also took huge volumes of pharmaceuticals — valium and uppers — in an effort to escape from their own internalized homophobia. Also, and perhaps most importantly, as "liberated" as gay men were, they couldn't handle the backlash of hate that accompanied gay liberation. We, as a culture, bought into Anita Bryant's hatred, and it caused mass depression. How can you survive a deadly illness when you get hammered, day after day, with the message that it's your fault? I'm aware that many, many gay men died in the '8os of what seemed at the time to be a mysterious disease. I, like many AIDS radicals, challenge the conventional wisdom of AIDS science: we question whether HIV has ever actually been isolated, and whether it is capable of the kind of cellular carnage that its discoverer, Robert C. Gallo, attributes to it. Remember, from the beginning AIDS has been a gay disease (or a black disease, or an addicts' disease, or a prostitutes' disease) and no amount of liberal hectoring has managed to change that fact. And to imagine that the medical establishment (which has been consistently homophobic for 150 years) would suddenly change its spots and deal with gay men fairly — without getting mixed up with judgement and punishment — now that's a real fairy story. Since I left Buddies, I've become involved in an organization called HEAL (Health, Education, AIDS Liaison). It's an international organization, founded in New York City by Michael Ellner in the mid-'8os, that challenges traditional notions of AIDS. The most obvious proof of the ineffectiveness of HIV as a virus is that many, many people who are diagnosed as Hiv-positive

95

(and who have never taken AIDS drugs) never get sick. I wrote an article about long-term thrivers with HIV in Toronto Life magazine a year before I wrote this book (and I was nominated for a National Magazine Award for it). Readers thought that the four people I interviewed were rare cases. They're not. Thrivers are everywhere and their numbers are growing; eventually their survival will kill the myths around AIDS that we take as gospel today. Like many members of HEAL, my radical ideas about AIDS aren't preventing me from using condoms. (All the drag queens in Drag Queens on Trial used condoms.) My favourite parody of Renaissance poetry is "The asshole is a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there embrace." There are plenty of reasons (syphilis, gonorrhoea, parasites, threats to the immune system — all the dangers of sperm and blood contact) for gay men to use condoms. All I can say is that if our public health officials think the only way to get people to use condoms is by scaring them to death with AIDS, then they're not too savvy. I didn't know about HEAL when I wrote Drag Queens on Trial. But I thought then what I know now — that AIDS is a way of looking at gay men, a way of fantasizing about punishing them, and a method of social control. AIDS is not about medicine, or compassion, or science. It's about guilt and punishing sexual pleasure. AIDS has become so wrapped up in our society's puritan, sexophobic notions that it is impossible to call it a disease, or even a syndrome. It's a way of looking at the world. I rebelled against that way of looking at the world from the beginning, and whenever I have written about AIDS, it's been from a position of scepticism. I think that most of today's AIDS plays have as much artistic value as the plays in the I9th century that dealt with tuberculosis and syphilis — which means none at all. The only important play I can think of from that era that deals with venereal disease is Ibsen's Ghosts. It's not his best play. Even Ibsen falls prey to melodramatic possibilities. (But he does get the sound of one hand clapping for being critical of religious righteousness through the character of Pastor Manders.) The 19th-century hit Camille is not a great play, in the same way that Angels in America is not a great play. Both cave in to the temptation to present lurid sex and the resulting punishment, with a concomitant deification of the victim. In 19th-century melodramas, dying whores were far too pretty, delicate, and articulate, and their deaths were far too romantic. In modern AIDS plays, parents are far too understanding,

nurses far too witty, gay men too rich and white — and they can too easily remember everyone they've had sex with. All these plays buttress Victorian morality, and encourage hypocrisy to flourish behind banal platitudes about death and love. Drag Queens on Trial is not an AIDS play. I don't write AIDS plays. Occasionally I write plays that critique AIDS. That's it. Nobody really talked about Drag Queens on Trial as being an AIDS play, anyway. All the audience ever noticed were the camp jokes and the delightful drag performers. It could just be that the actors' performances overshadowed my play though I don't think that's what happened, and I'd be honest about it if I actually thought that were the case. (Though this whole issue did cause a lot of tension later, when Kent Staines went on to write his own show for the character Lana Lust.) No, it wasn't simply that the actors were more delightful than my play. The play was more delightful than my play, if that makes any sense. This, of course, is the danger of the charm factory — of all commercial theatre. Sometimes the medium obscures the message. I had sugar-coated myself into a corner. People came out humming the costumes and repeating the filthy jokes — not discussing the ideas. But I couldn't help it! Drag queens are filthy and funny, and it's realistic to write them that way! There was no stopping the Drag Queens on Trial hysteria, Christopher Bye gleefully suggested that the play run for another couple of months. How could I (or my three glamorous new stars) refuse? Unfortunately, the extended run was the source of a huge conflict with Christopher. When the show closed in late December, after what was intended to be a month-long October run, he informed me diat we hadn't really had enough money to extend the show. We were both responsible for this mistake. I had blithely left the accounting side of things to him — not having much experience with general managers, I assumed that he would take care of something that I hated. Well, in this case, he hadn't. And what should have just been an admission to a mistake on his part, followed by a dressing down on my part, became a horrible blow-up. Because I was so terribly insecure about delegating power to anyone else, I was traumatized by his financial mistakes and I fired him in a rage, accusing him of trying to destroy Buddies. I will admit

97

that this kind of behaviour was my hubris and, ultimately, the chief reason why I left Buddies. I had founded Buddies in 1979 with two people who immediately left the company. I ran it pretty much by myself for six years. There had been the odd crisis, but in the main things were consistently on the up and up. Then another person became intimately involved with the company, and it was suddenly in deep financial trouble. This had never happened, I reasoned, when I ran the show. There must have been something wrong with Christopher Bye. Or maybe he had it in for me. (Of course he didn't — that was an insane idea.) My natural response was to lash out, to accuse Christopher of trying to destroy Buddies (me). Looking back on it, I was very cruel to him and I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize. What neither he nor I realized was that Buddies was not only me, it was also my protection against a homophobic world. Think about it for a minute. Most gay people have jobs where they have to hide their homosexuality from their bosses and co-workers. Or at least act low-key. Most people save their "gayness" for their partners and friends. I had created a job for myself where a gay man (me) was in charge, and where people would have to put up with me being flamboyant, effeminate, and frank about my sexual exploits during daily social intercourse. To a vulnerable girlyboy who had only been out of the closet for six years, Buddies felt like a very safe sanctuary, indeed. Without it, I would have had to confront the straight world. No wonder I got paranoid when it looked like it all might disappear. My relationship with Buddies was complex. How could it be me and at the same time my protection? And I think this problem was magnified by the fact that I had no idea how much my identity was wrapped up in the company, or just how afraid I was to face the world alone as a gay writer. My unconscious identification with Buddies caused me to want to expand it to include others who could support me (Buddies). But at the same time, I had paranoid fears that those very people might conspire against me (Buddies). Think of the expansion of Buddies as being a pill — one you must take to prevent disease. You need it badly to protect yourself. But there may be side effects. Before my fight with Chris, we created another showcase — the Fourplay festival of new gay and lesbian work. Buddies was getting gayer and gayer. And the gayer it got, the more protected I felt.

Bye and I knew that we wanted to replace the old Canadian Poetry Onstage Festival with something else. Rhubarb! was not a primarily queer event, and we knew how important it was to give special help to queer work. We decided to call die event Fourplay to exploit the pun. We wanted to present four plays, and we saw each one as "foreplay" — a warm-up to a larger production — because we could offer so little financial support. I thought it was important to give back more to the queer community, since Buddies was getting funding now and I no longer had to work at the bookstore. My aggressive self-promotion is not typical. A lot of gay and lesbian writers just don't have the courage to show their work around. Even though there are gay artistic directors in Toronto (I won't name them — part of the bigger problem is that they're still in the closet), it's rare to see honest gay and lesbian plays, plays that draw their inspiration from the real life of our community, performed. When I was at Buddies I listened to countless tales of how gay work had been censored and sanitized by the Tarragon play factory or by other dramaturges at other theatres. Plays about the realities of gay life (strippers, promiscuity, drag, prostitution, intergenerational love) miraculously changed into "family" melodramas. Critics in the habit of praising the Tarragon point to Hosanna, Michel Tremblay's lovely play about a drag queen and her boyfriend, as an exception. When it was presented at the Tarragon, however, we were assured that the play was not about drag or gay men, it was about Quebec. Yeah, Quebec. Now, I don't think this is just a case of distinguishing theme from subject matter. This is an attempt to obscure die subject matter by substituting a more socially acceptable theme. At the end of the play, the drag queen, Hosanna, decides to take off her dress and be her real self— a not-too-attractive ageing gay man. This is supposed to represent Quebec shedding Confederation. Tarragon theatregoers could only accept a play with drag subject matter if they could convince themselves it was a play about federalism. Toronto definitely needed Buddies, a gay theatre that doesn't apologize for the content of its work. I remember when the lovely play Lilies (later made into a movie by John Greyson) first came to Toronto. The Theatre Passe Muraille press release — which I wish I'd saved — said something about how this play, unlike other gay plays (meaning my own!), was not really involved with modern gay culture. Well, sure, Lilies is a tragic period piece, a story about two slender, hairless boys set at the turn of the century. It's about as sexual as my left toe.

*9

Now, I don't mind, that (I actually find slender, hairless boys kinda cute), but I think it's important to point out that alternative theatres in Toronto generally present gay plays only in the context of wider issues, set in different periods, or when saturated in "family." This trend climaxed with Angels in America, another lovely play (have I used the word "lovely" enough yet?) that, they tell us, is not about homosexuality or homophobia or any of those nasty things. It's about the state of America. (Of course that means the United States of America. Not Canada. Or Mexico. Or South America.) I wish Angels in America weren't just an entertaining soap opera filled with challenging ideas. I wish it were a great play. But it's not, and, even more regrettably, most people can't watch it without guilt — unless they're constantly reminding themselves what an intelligent play they're watching, and how sad gay men are. Of course this applies not only to gay work but to any sexual work. Women who write explicitly about sexuality have encountered the same dramaturgical reactions. My friend Ann Holloway once submitted a play for the Tarragon playwrights' workshop entitled The Whore Van from Hell. Andy McKim, Urjo's assistant, turned up his nose at the title. "Why do you have to call it that?" he asked. Later, of course, Tarragon presented a mainstage production called The Road to Hell. So the word "hell" was never at issue — but "whore" most certainly was. Budding playwright Pat Langner (who later cofounded the Toronto band Leslie SpitTree-o) was a friend of mine during this period, and one of the many straight playwrights who complained to me about censorship at the Tarragon Playwrights' Unit — which is why he came over to Buddies for a while. Pat isn't a certified queer — but he sure wanted to write that play about jerking off his dog! (I'm not kidding. Killer Dogs was produced at Rhubarb! in 1988. Those who saw it will never forget it.) You see, it's one thing for a theatre to present a "gay" play like the ones that are usually performed at the Tarragon — plays that are usually about middleclass gay men going home to their small-town families. Plays like Daniel Maclvor's Somewhere I Never Travelled or Don Hannah's plays are mostly about family life in a very traditional sense. The plays that we produced at Buddies in the '8os were about the new kinds of families that queer people make for themselves — with their lovers, friends, and community. And the work we produced was honest about being sexual. I don't think that gay people are any more sexual than straight people, really. But they are often more honest.

People seem to think that gay men have a lot more sex than straight people. I don't think that's true. I think the reason people think we have so much sex has to do with sexism. Men are raised to be open and proud of their sex and their genitals. Women are raised to be ashamed of both. Women aren't supposed to brag about their conquests. Men are. So gay culture seems more sexual than straight culture. And, of course, lesbian culture is seen as the least sexual of all. But I think that the facts are different. You see, sexual women are simply not part of the dialogue. They are dismissed as sluts, so the one group of people who might be able to articulate the details of female sexuality are dismissed because of sexism. For instance, homophobes always go on about gay guys having anal sex and how unnatural that is. The implication is, of course, that gay men are obsessed with sodomy, but that straight men (and women) are not. Well, not all gay men have anal sex. In fact, I would doubt that even the majority of them do. Gay men participate in a full range of activities (some simply masturbate, or have oral sex). I'm certain that on any given evening there are just as many straight men in the world having anal sex with, "slutty" women as there are gay men have anal sex with one another. Straight culture is so hypocritical. It pretends that traditional monogamous marriage is the only forum for sex and romance. But we all know that "bad girls" exist, hookers, for instance, have sex, and sometimes even romance, with their Johns. In fact, heterosexuality could not exist without prostitution. There would be no marriage if there wasn't a place where bad boys and girls could go to get away from it. Queer culture is more honest about the fact that most relationships are not lifelong, and that, often, romantic relationships morph into friendships. We know that most people are not monogamous. Queers don't see "bad girls" as evil — we love them, whether they're dykes with dildos or drag queen sluts. I certainly find it difficult to spend a huge amount of time with most (but not all) straight people. I know that sounds awful. I've got nothing against straights personally; it's a cultural difference. Some of my best friends (to borrow a phrase) are straight. Usually, my straight women friends like to talk frankly about sex, and my straight male friends are the type of guys who wish they were gay and scorn the patriarchy. To me, this makes them more like queers. It all has to do with sexual frankness. I normally illustrate what I have to say with sexual anecdotes — by talking about who I did last night and how. Does that sound so terribly awful? To some, I guess, it does. I suppose most

101

"normal" people think sexual details are too private. But sexual people, people who are as relaxed about having sex as they are about eating dinner, don't think that. Dinner? I can't tell you how many dinner parties I've attended where I've felt I had to keep my mouth shut about certain subjects in order not to offend. And self-censorship, if it becomes a ritual, can be deadly. At least for a writer and talker like me. Not all fags and dykes are like me. Some of them hate the queer community and only hang out with straights. This helps explain why some people in the queer community resented the Fourplay Festival. From the start, the concept met with confusion. A lot of straight people didn't get it, and thought we were trying to ghettoize writers. Nothing could be further from the truth. We were trying to give writers who wrote with honesty about their own lives a chance they might not otherwise have to bring their work out into the open. And, of course, I have to admit that at the same time I was knitting a tighter, safer queer cocoon around myself. Anyway, that first Fourplay was a modest production at Theatre Passe Muraille that featured pieces by Jim Bartley, Byron Ayanoglu, and David Demchuk. The David Demchuk play If Betty Should Rise was a remount of an incredibly successful Rhubarb! piece from the year before, starring Martha Cronyn. Byron's and Jim's plays were both funny and honest looks at our gay families, our gay promiscuities, and our gay lives. Speaking of promiscuous gay lives, a lot of changes in my own were occurring around this time. I decided to move out of the flat I had shared with Patsy Lang for nearly four years. At the suggestion of a new friend, Tim Guest, I moved into an old Victorian house at 57 Homewood Avenue. The decision had a major effect on my life, and the life of Buddies. In one sense, it was purely practical. Patsy rarely designed sets for me anymore, focusing instead on theatrical lighting — she did the lighting design for Drag Queens on Trial and Drag Queens in Outer Space. She was also getting more and more work at the Shaw Festival and at the Native Theatre School. Of course there were tensions in our relationship, but nothing major. Our cat went mad (a lot of my cats go mad, actually — perhaps a sign of some primal instability on my part?). Though I loved Patsy and I think she loved me, we were incredibly different. I found her slow, deliberate approach to things ultimately too perplexing.

It didn't make practical sense to live in the Annex anymore. Boyfriendless, I was now partying all the time. Almost every night of the week I was over in the gay ghetto at Church and Wellesley, checking out the bars and the baths, smoking pot and getting drunk. It seemed an awful waste of time to haul my busy ass back to the Annex every night just to sleep and perhaps have tea with Patsy. Buddies was also in serious financial trouble and without a general manager. I moved all the financial records into my new room and started running the company from my desk, just like the old days. Here I was again, struggling with the old paradigm: Buddies/me, me/Buddies. It was as if Chris Bye had been my lover (he hadn't) and betrayed me. I ran off to another "lover." Tim Guest usurped Christopher's place. By moving into a gay house, I was affirming that Buddies was gay, and that it was mine, and that the two of us would be safe and protected there. Later, the house itself would provide us with another cocoon and even more protection. Tim Guest, was a very beautiful and political young fag. He was a Trotskyite, and heavily involved in the art scene. As the ex-lover of Felix Partz (one of the triumvirate of General Idea), and a curator at Art Metropole, he certainly seemed to be one of the trendiest, prettiest, and smartest cultural mavens on the Toronto scene. He was such fun to hang out with. I'd had a falling out with David MacLean after the Drag Queens on Trial incident, andandd David Pond couldn't really talk to me about gay politics or the art scene. But Tim was a smart slut like me — so we'd go out and cruise together. Tim lived in a fabulous house. It was a four-bedroom, three-storey Victorian semi-detached with a huge backyard, deck, and modern kitchen. It had all the creature comforts, like a dishwasher (which Patsy and I had always longed for). As fate would have it, a room was available, and Tim suggested I move in. Tim was no dummy, and I think he knew that it was not just a residential choice. He knew I was getting more than just flatmates. I was, quite literally, entering a new world, one that would change my life. The other housemates were Bob Gallagher and Sue Golding — both professors at Trent University. When I moved in, Sue had a small room where she stayed part-time when she wasn't at Trent. At first I was frightened by Tim's description of her: "She's a very political lesbian and she makes porn movies. Don't worry. You'll meet her someday. She's great." I knew that lesbians were political, and that's about all. I certainly didn't

103

know that they made porn movies. I had almost no experience with lesbians at the time. The women at Nightwood were not lesbians. They were politically correct and tried to be open-minded, but that's not the same thing. I had worked with two lesbians during Rhubarb! at the Poor Alex the year before. Both were associated with Nightwood, but they also had something in common that I associated with lesbians — they were very angry at men. Not just the patriarchy. Men. Basically, I figured that all lesbians didn't like men. It's a common misconception. And you know, it's all about proximity! I had this misconception because I'd simply never gotten to know a lesbian. Yes, the fires of ignorance are fanned by lack of experience. Sue Golding became my new learning experience. I was afraid to meet her. I assumed she would be fat and frowzy and rude. I expected her to lecture me about my insensitivity to "womyn's" issues. Well, I couldn't have been more ofT. First of all, Sue Golding was slender, very cool, and sexy. Her closecropped hair, capable gestures, and tight physique made her surprisingly attractive. And she looked like a boy. I can't remember when I first met her. It was probably over laundry or something. I was absolutely enchanted with her. Sue is like Lucille Ball living in the body of a gorgeous, intellectual butch dyke. It probably comes from the combination of a military father and highfemme mother. Sue is one of the funniest, smartest people I've ever met. Since I'm not sexually attracted to women, I can't imagine hanging out with them unless they're funny and smart. The fact that Sue is gorgeous makes it even more fun. (I won't attempt to explore the fact that two of the most important women in my life — my mother and Sue Golding — both remind me of Lucille Ball. Especially since they're about as alike as water and fire!) Right off, she started educating me. I was frank with her and told her that I was afraid of lesbians. "Why?" she asked. "Because I think they don't like men." "A lot of them don't," she said. "They're called essentialists. I'm not an essentialist." "What's that?" I asked. What I got next from Sue, though I didn't know it at the time, was a crash course in the thinking of Michel Foucault. Foucault was an obsession for both Sue and Bob. (Gallagher once had an affair with Foucault — as much as anyone could have a whole affair with the famously promiscuous philosopher. Bob used to take him around to tours of bathhouses on his Toronto visits. He claimed that Foucault didn't understand

gay liberation until he saw the Toronto Gay Pride Parade. "It all made sense when I saw those asses swaying in the sun!" is how Bob used to paraphrase what Foucault had told him.) Sue explained that men and women were exactly the same. Except, of course, for the little difference between the legs. "But genitals are pretty flexible. Men can roll over and women can always strap on a dildo." Sue explained to me that those who assume that people are somehow essentially different because of their gender, race, or sexuality are "essentialists." Like me, Sue had been brought up being pressured — she to be a little girl, to do girl things, and me to be a little boy, to do boy things. Sue explained she wasn't a "fern." She was a "butch top." All this was very new to me. At first I was afraid to talk to her about Drag Queens on Trial — afraid that she would disapprove. I couldn't have been more wrong. She loved my work and the work of John Waters, and explained my own work to me. Sue was my best dramaturge, in the European sense of the word. She knew more about why I was writing than I did. One of the most important things Sue did was to explain to me how and why my plays were political. She said, "Don't you understand that your drag queens free people to be themselves? If you can put on a dress then /can put on pants and take power. And that's exactly what I do." Sue always dressed in a suit and tie for her lectures. The first thing she said to her students after "hello" was "I'm a lesbian." Her students loved her (and they still do — Sue now teaches at Greenwich University in London and in Maastricht). Sue gave me the courage of my convictions. If it hadn't been for her, I doubt I would have gone on to write Drag Queens in Outer Space or any of rny other drag plays. No matter how many people accused me of being misogynist, I'd just go back home to Sue and we'd talk essentialism again, and I'd feel better. Sue made me feel brave enough to walk into a room full of what she called "the wrong kind" of feminists and take the heat. I remember getting into a yelling match with an unattractive dyke on Pride Day when I was dressed in full "Jane" regalia, for instance. The woman was offended by my large fake breasts. Sue and I talked about breasts and purses — and how they are kind of the same, but different. Purses are not, after all, innately female. They're merely one aspect of femininity. For a woman to claim that a purse or a scarf is an integral part of being a woman just doesn't make sense, and doesn't serve feminism. After all, aren't these

105

trappings of femininity something that women have been trying, all these years, to free themselves from? Breasts are a thornier issue. Sue loved Jane, my busty character with the gigantic, almost cartoonish breasts. She knew that the object of my satire was not breasts themselves, but the ridiculous pressure put on women's breasts to be erotic objects. Jayne Mansfield and Marilyn Monroe are proud, in the silliest way, of their silliest attribute. Or perhaps I should say one of their most important ones, since Sue and I both consider sex, erogenous zones, and breasts to be important. To lesbians, and to gay men alike. But don't we need to poke fun at the things we value the most? Just to let off a little steam from sexual repression, if nothing else? Sue and I had both loved The Clichettes, and later Empress Productions (a theatre group that included Diane Flacks, Wendy White, and Victoria Ward) because these women parodied men's sexuality in the same way that my drag queens parodied women's — grabbing their crotches, acting terribly proud of their endowments. That's what men do. And it is funny. Sue and Bob also had an effect on my personal life. At the time, they had a very deep friendship that was almost a marriage — a sexless marriage. I know that Bob had been Sue's mentor and had led her out of the wilderness of a man-hating, sexless form of feminism. They really loved each other. And there was an enormous civility in that house, a real acceptance of promiscuity. Early on in our friendship, Sue told me I was a pervert. I was a little offended. I said I'd always associated perverts with dark alleys. "No, I mean, you like sex. Sex is one of the most important things in your life. That makes you a.pervert. And that's okay." Well, up until this point in my life I had felt guilty about my promiscuity. I used to smuggle boys home when I lived with Patsy as she looked on with a wry smile. Patsy didn't disapprove — after all, she had affairs now and then herself. But, like most straight women, I think she was a bit of an essentialist, and the sheer volume of tricks passing through our doors amazed her. I think she thought I was acting like a "man" or a typical "fag." No judgement, but my lifestyle was very different from hers. Sue and Bob were more promiscuous than I was, although I hadn't thought that was possible. And there was a relaxed, civil acceptance of overnight tricks and hangovers and dirty sex talk. Sex was just a part of life. I remember that Bob and Sue had both worked at the Body Politic during its earlier years and were very involved with organizing gay liberation in Toronto. At the very

beginning of the crisis, when AIDS and condoms became an issue, Bob didn't believe in them. That's how radical these people were. By the time I moved into the house, they had accepted AIDS as a grim reality, but the philosophy was to shove on that condom (or, for Sue, boil that dildo) and have fun! Let me give you an idea of the kind of civility we had around sex. (I know I've already used the word "civil" four times. But I'm going to use it a fifth.) The way we conducted ourselves around sex was incredibly civilized. When I moved into the house 1 was still close with David Pond, my little punk friend. Well, I could see that he and Bob were immediately attracted to one another. Bob took me aside soon after I moved in and said, "I know you have a kind of sexual relationship with David now and then." "Right," I said. "Well," Bob said, "I can tell that there's sexual energy between David and me. But I won't act on it unless you don't mind. I don't know if you'd be jealous. I just don't want to start any trouble." I informed him, calmly and easily, and thankfully, that I would rather he didn't sleep with David, even though David and I weren't lovers (more like occasional fuckbuddies). Sue calls behaviour like this "good manners." What did all this talk do to me? Where was the puritanical little straight boy now? Well, now he was plunging himself into the very heart of gay culture, into the centre of "the lifestyle" that we hear so much about on Christian TV. I was doing everything I could to kill whatever about me was still straight. And it seemed to me that the last remaining straight part of me was the urge for a boyfriend. Wasn't that where all my pain had come from? In pinning all my hopes on Glenn, and then searching for him everywhere? Wouldn't it be better to have sex for fun, the way Bob and Sue did, rather than using it to find the perfect guy? My own hypocrisy was suddenly crystal clear. Perhaps I wasn't cut out to have a boyfriend. Sue didn't seem to think so. She had told me over and over again that I was a pervert. So, in order to free myself from everything heterosexual, I decided to abandon the romantic side of myself. But I think it's important to note one thing: though I was desperately attempting to wipe out every uptight part of me, the fat, frizzy-haired little A-student was still alive inside. How do I know? Mainly through my relationship with Tim Guest. For even though we pretended to be equals — cute boys around town — we weren't. Tim was a

107

lot cuter than me. I used to joke about the fact that I felt quite invisible when we were out together. I could blend right into the woodwork. Guys were obsessed with Tim. He was slender, with perfect cheekbones and straight, dark hair. He was very boyish. He looked a bit like one of those velvet paintings of children with the page-boy haircuts and the gigantic round eyes. But inside, he was a pervert. And what he liked best was making clean, preppy white boys get down and dirty. Once we went to Provincetown together. Besides the incredibly hot bus ride, what I remember most vividly was Tim's popularity. It was very difficult measuring up to Tim, and of course I tried. I was constantly comparing myself to him, and constantly feeling inadequate. This wasn't Tim's fault, of course; it was all happening in my head. About this time I began to go to the gym. I had been trying for years to diet, but to no avail. For a while I had gotten down to 180 pounds (just like the picture on the cover of this book). It took an enormous amount of agonizing and unhealthy dieting, and I became unnaturally skinny for my frame. I finally realized that I have a large frame and a round face, and no matter how skinny I get, I still look big. Why not go with my body type and just work out more? When I began going to the gym, I started to feel somewhat better about myself (I was among other big guys, where big was a value). But there was a part of me that still wished that I was the slender, perfect Tim Guest. Was I growing up and changing for the better? I wasn't sure. But I sure was changing. It's no accident that my spring play, Hustling, was about male hookers — the well-kept secret that is still very much at the centre of the gay lifestyle. Looking back on that year, I can't imagine how we managed to do so many shows, especially after Chris Bye left. With the help of David Pond and Edward Roy, who was now a close friend, I was somehow able to get Hustling produced. A friend of Chris's, Dan Wardock, was also helping us out with publicity. I called the Canada Council and asked them to help me with emergency funds; they were generous and saved the company during a very trying time. We managed to mount Hustling, a very strange production, at the Annex Theatre. Like Drag Queens on Trial, it was the story of three hookers, only this time they were not drag queens. One was a street type, one was very preppie, and the other was an effeminate party boy. Eddie Roy played the street kid,

and he was very funny. He ad libbed the line "I'm no nob gobbler!" I loved that phrase. The play was interspersed with videos of a fat guy (Byron Ayanoglu) selling used cars, since the theme was selling. I don't think anyone came to see the piece. I remember it as a touching and very realistic look at the lives of these boy hookers, but I think its lack of popularity just confirmed for me that audiences needed lots of sugar-coating on their pill. Just before Hustling was produced, we held the most radical and controversial Rhubarb! ever at the Tarragon Extra Space. I asked Tim Guest to help. I wanted to make sure that Rhubarb! kept its special status as a place for nonscripted and performance-art work, so I decided to accentuate the performance-art element by asking Tim to curate a week of performances. Tim did, with his unique sense of humour. It was one of the best (and worst) Rhubarbs! on record. My mistake was in dividing the three weeks thematically. The first week was reserved for "performance art," the second week for "performance-art oriented theatre," and the third week for "scripted theatre." Rather than mixing the audience and exposing them to different disciplines, as I had hoped, the schedule had the opposite effect. All the theatre people came to the third week, avoiding the performance-art week like the plague. The visual-arts types wouldn't go near the third week. And the second week was, as usual, simply underattended. There were two big coups, however. First of all, Tim managed to stage Keep It Clean. Nothing more than a half-hour of watching a rub by (we would call him a homeless person now) taking a bath, the piece really was quite amazing. People were appalled by what they called its heartless insensitivity. Basically, the artist who devised the work decided to invite a homeless man to take a bath in the Tarragon Theatre space. The homeless guy was paid and, of course, he got a bath. And then the old guy would just talk. Well, it was quite a spectacle. There's really nothing quite like watching an old rubby bathe himself— it sort of puts everything^ perspective. But I don't think the people a Tarragon liked the piece very much. "That's not theatre!" they whispered. Both Guest and I were pleased. That was the whole idea: to challenge the definition of theatre, and to watch it merge with performance art. The other coup? Well, some very-soon-to-be-famous young artists got their start at this Rhubarb! In 1986 Eddie Roy made his debut as a director with Remission by Bryden MacDonald. On the same bill was Daniel

109

Maclvor, making his Buddies acting debut in David Demchuk's second Rhubarb! play, Touch. Daniel was naked in this play, and everyone seemed to think he was very attractive. Thank God I was immune to his charms. Anyway, I noticed that Daniel was a smart and talkative guy, one of those Cape Bretonners who had come to the big city full of creative energy. He was hanging out at the time with Audrey Butler, who was soon to become a lesbian playwright and a major force at Buddies. I didn't even know that she or Daniel were writers back then. But Daniel was excellent in Davids touching play which Audrey directed. (Touch went on to win a Dora Award.) At this Rhubarb! I had a brainstorm. I suggested diat Ken McDougall direct a piece by Robin Fulford called Organic Divide. It was the beginning of a collaboration that later came to fruition in Steel Kiss. This Rhubarb! saw the nascency of a number of young artists who would go on to create gay and lesbian productions at Buddies in Bad Times. In 1986, all their steps were tentative, and Rhubarb! gave them a chance to pick and choose among writing, directing, and acting. It was a great training ground. In the RhubarbSs from 1987 through to 1989 — all at the Annex Theatre — many of these artists were able to experiment with smaller works they'd later develop at Fourplay. Sometimes these artists (like Daniel Maclvor, Ken McDougall, Edward Roy, Robin Fulford, Ken Keobke, David Demchuk, Jeff Kirby, Jordan Merkur, Peter Lynch, and Michael Achtman) would work on short Rhubarb! pieces that never went on to be performed elsewhere. Daniel Maclvor's Theatre Omaha's Production of the Sound of Music is one exception — it has been revived. But whether or not the particular little Rhubarb! plays went on to greater success didn't matter. The point of Rhubarb! was that these artists were developing in a non-threatening, supportive, yet still critical environment — developing into artists who would produce more and more interesting work. These associations were not only professional, they were social, too. Eddie Roy and I and David Pond, for example, started to have lots of fun together. We were all single and acting like sluts. And we liked to smoke a lot of dope. When I had first met Eddie, I could only see his tough-boy butch beauty: he's about five foot nine with a hard, feisty little body and very sharp Italian features (his real last name is Chironi). I thought he was a street kid who happened to have an amazing sense of humour and explosive acting talent. But Eddie is much deeper than that, and he quickly grew up into a

discerning fag who was attracted to beautiful young men himself. Ed went to The Dome theatre school in Montreal. He used to hang out there with a very interesting group of actors and writers, including Peter Brawley, Byron Ayanoglu, and Steven Lack. Peter is a kind and brilliant man, a painter and writer, and still Eddie's dear friend. When Eddie first knew him, Peter was improvising Canadian Warholian movies like Montreal Main with Steven Lack. Steven later moved to New York City, got married, and became an established painter. But when Eddie knew him he was quite queer, and the star of the Canadian cult feature Rubber Gun. When Steven met Eddie in the 'yos, he perused him up and down, and, like Harold in The Boys in the Band, intoned, "Is it a chicken? Or is it a chicken . . . hawk?" As I got to know Eddie, I realized that he had incredibly sharp theatrical instincts — and directorial instincts, too. I've always believed that there were too few good directors, so I encouraged Eddie to direct. The other thing that happened, of course, was that a little sexual society was developing around these festivals. There were romances, and flirtations, and one-night stands. Daniel Maclvor was very much the centre of the flirtations. People were smitten, and he was driving several members of that little queer group of artists mad with desire. Later on, he would become a close friend for a while. At the time I was a little frightened of his precocious appeal but he didn't hold any sexual attraction for me. I was glad that I had my own social scene at Homewood, and I could continue my policy of remaining aloof from the sexual games that theatre people so often involve themselves in. In fact, we were starting to have parties at Homewood. Wild parties. Parties where people would often be found having sex in the upstairs rooms. The parties became very popular and eventually kind of famous. My social life revolved around Homewood and, of course, the bathhouses. I prided myself on the fact that I didn't need to chase after my theatre compatriots. I got my sex at the baths and scorned romance. While all this was happening, another big change was on the horizon. The success of Drag Queens on Trial led me to write a sequel, Drag Queens in Outer Space. It was also a huge hit, and it took me back to the Shaw Festival. And it led to all sorts of personal problems that drew me away from Buddies and allowed me less time to seek out artists ripe for development. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

ill

Working on the sequel to Drag Queens on Trial, I tried to incorporate a lot of the things I'd learned from Sue. I didn't want to use words like "bitch" and "cunt" any more. They seemed too essentialist. And I decided that in Judy Goose's outer space fantasy, she would meet the mad Queen of Outer Space (played by Lana Lust), who would have the politics of a politically correct '705 lesbian. The kind that Sue hated. That's why the Queen of Outer Space says, "Men are all the same. There is something in the penis that is inherently violent and is used to kill. The only thing to do with men is to grind them up and eat them for dinner." This was supposed to parody die essentialist lesbian position. Again, I think diese ideas were lost on most of the audience, who simply enjoyed the jokes and funny costumes. But Drag Queens in Outer Space went on to be produced at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco, There, die production was directed by a lesbian, and there was discussion in the newspapers about the liberating possibilities of drag, so it may very well be that the true politics of the piece eventually emerged. I don't mean to make Drag Queens in Outer Space sound like a dry, Foucauldian analysis. Nothing could be further from the truth. We produced the play in the fall of 1986, upstairs at Lee's Palace, a Bloor Street nightclub. Tanuj Kohli designed the sets and Patsy designed the lights. Kent, Doug, and Leonard were in their element. I had written a huge three-page monologue for Kent because I knew he had the "chops" to handle it. He was terribly nervous about it. The monologue narrated Lana's fantasy trip to Europe. Kent was magnificent, mispronouncing everything and acting like the dumbest sex object in the world. The monologue was based on the movie The Wild Wild World ofjayne Mansfield — one of the silliest movies you'll ever see. I havesee. I havee the poster at home, and it has a great promotional line on it: "Tragedy changed this picture's ending!" This is because Jayne Mansfield was "decapitated" in a car accident before this "documentary" about her sexual exploits was finished. (A little-known truth: in actual fact, Jayne was not decapitated in the accident. However, the wig she often wore flew off. It was found at the scene and rumoured to be her actual head.) I really am proud of Drag Queens in Outer Space. I think that it's a play where politics, humanity, and sheer fun mix until you can't tell where one stops and die other begins. The scene at the end in which the two boring middle-class fags go home to meet Mother — who turns out to be an axe-wielding Joan Crawford clone — might be the funniest thing I've ever written.

It's a play, I think, where charm is not added— there is no sugar-coating. The play is incredibly charming and, at the same time, primally meaningful. And the two aspects of the piece never compete; they coalesce. There was one small uncomfortable moment in all the fun, though: negotiating the contracts with the three queens. Buddies had a new general manager at that time — Simone Georges, a pretty and competent straight woman who was very enthusiastic about our work. After working with Chris Bye, I had again tried to run the company on my own. Deep down, I knew it was impossible. So I hired a new manager. Choosing a straight woman may seem strange since I was going through such a "gayer than gay" period. But I thought it might be good to work with someone who wasn't gay. I attributed some of the tension that Chris and I shared to the fact that we regularly went out cruising together, that our professional relationship was also a friendship. I was so concerned about the health of Buddies — my existence was so wrapped up in it — that I thought it would be safer to hire someone like Simone. I knew things would be strictly business, I could watch her like a hawk because we weren't friends. For some reason, however, I ended up negotiating the contracts with the three actors by myself. I think Simone was just taking care of the business end of things, and it was my job to deal with the people. Anyway, Kent, Doug, and Leonard started putting pressure on me to pay them a lot more money. The whole thing astounded me. It made me realize how quickly fame can go to peoples heads. I mean it was understandable that they wanted more money — they certainly deserved it. But of course they had no idea (until I told them) that we had actually lost money on Drag Queens on Trial. Basically, they didn't understand that in alternative theatre, you rarely make a profit. That when you do, it's rolled back in to keep the company healthy. It wasn't so much that the request offended me, but that I noticed resentment in Kent's tone. He knew that in some ways he was the star of the show (he had the most lines), and it seemed to me that he was getting arrogant. I know, for instance, that some people think that I didn't even write those plays. Because the drag queens were so funny and at ease, some people assume that the gals ad libbed all their lines, or that the text was created in rehearsal. Sure, we used the odd ad lib, but the scripts and the characters were written. It made me a bit insecure that the actors were so popular that people were beginning to attribute the play's success to them. The truth was, we

113.

were all in it together — we all deserved the credit. All of this boiled over into a much bigger issue a year later. At the time, however, it was fun and games. Drag Queens in Outer Space opened on Halloween, and we had a dance at Lee's Palace afterwards. Christopher Newton saw the play, and loved it. He and I had remained friends over the years. A few weeks later, he called and asked if I wanted to direct a play at the Shaw Festival. Well, I was flattered. But also very conflicted. The play he wanted me to direct was the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes. And just as a sort of side thing, I would be directing the "Risk" — the Shaw Festival's experimental slot — which would be Oscar Wilde's Salome. The offer threw me for a loop. Of course it would be enormously exciting. I'd get my Director's Equity card. I'd be paid lots of money. Nora McLellan, a brilliant and hilarious Shaw actor, would be playing the original Ethel Merman role. I had met Nora at my last stint at the Shaw, and I knew she would be a dream to work with. What to do? You might wonder why I would have been conflicted at all. It was obviously a great opportunity. But there were three problems. I read the play and didn't like it. I didn't want to live in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The whole thing brought back memories of my affair with Christopher. Anything Goes is simply not very good. In fact, it's not a play at all. It's a series of not very funny vaudeville sketches written for the original cast, which included Ethel Merman and Victor Moore. The material was tailormade for three performers. It may even have been devised by them. The plot of the piece — what little there is — is threadbare. And if you start thinking about theme . . . well, you can pretty much forget that. Now, I was accustomed to directing plays that were about something. This was my whole basis for working. When directing my own work, I would always put the play aside for a while after writing it. Then I would come back to the piece as if it had been written by a stranger. "What's the theme?" I would ask myself. Then I would try to direct and design the piece around the theme. I didn't know how else to work. But what do you direct, and why do you direct, if the piece isn't about anything? So, Anything Goes was daunting. There was also Christopher and the whole Shaw thing. One of the rea-

sons I left the first time was that I didn't enjoy living in a small town, even though I had Christopher. I wasn't looking for a lover any more, but I still needed sex. How was I going to have fun in such a tiny place with no bathhouses? (You see, I don't drive. It's very, very hard to get out of Niagara-on-the-Lake without a car. You have to take a cab to St. Catharines and get a bus. I'm sure half my salary that year went for cabs to St. Catharines.) Was Christopher trying to lure me away from writing and into directing? Was he trying to lure me away from the city? When I first met Christopher, I had been much younger and more vulnerable. And, like visiting your parents at Christmas, returning to him made me feel like a little boy again. Still, I didn't want to give up a great opportunity. I said yes, but I vowed to mull over the "opportunity" before actually going. In the fall of 1986, Buddies staged the second annual Fourplay festival. All of the artists brought together for Rhubarb! the year before were represented. Daniel Maclvor, it turned out, had written a play called Material Benefits, a conventional, but very well written, middle-class love story. Ita ;love steprititrw starred a young actor named Steve Cumyn, who met his future lover, Eddie Roy, during rehearsals. Eddie directed a longer version of the Rhubarb! hit Remission. And Ken McDougall and Robin Fulford collaborated on the first production of Steel Kiss, a play about Ken Zeller, a gay man who was bashed to death in High Park. We also presented Provincetown 1919, a dark and impressionistic French-Canadian play in translation, directed by Paul Bettis. In the Passe Muraille Backspace was Claposis, Audrey Butler's first attempt at playwrighting for Buddies. It starred Ellen-Ray Hennessy and was directed by Robert Scott. Robert Scott and I were friends, but the friendship was like my relationship with Tim Guest. Robert was the perfect-looking curly-haired boy. I just couldn't seem to break the pattern of being the ugly stepsister. Except with Eddie. In fact, I was a little jealous when Eddie Roy found Steve Cumyn. I was completely comfortable with Eddie. And he never made me feel like his sidekick. Eddie and I had been bar buddies since we met in 1984. His streetwise sense of humour and no-nonsense intelligence was always a bracing tonic; one of my few long-standing close theatre friends, he's one of the funniest people alive. He can be anarchic and very silly, and he's my pal

115

to this day. Now, it's always hard when your promiscuous bar buddy gets married (this is the subject of the brilliant British gay TV show Queer As Folk). I had some insecurities about my new dizzy, ultra-gay Homewood social life coming into contact with the sexual and romantic inbreeding of the theatre world. But I couldn't dwell on that for long. This was one of the busiest creative times of my life. My spring production was almost as successful as Drag Queens in Outer Space, but it was very different. Theatrelife, as I mentioned earlier, was a play about my experiences at the Shaw Festival, and the leading character was loosely based on Christopher. I wrote the part called "The Bitch" for Ellen-Ray Hennessy. I was almost hypnotized by her wild sense of humour — the character's lines are written in Ellen-Ray's sort of hysterical manner of speaking. If you've never met Ellie, well, she's quite a treat. She must be six feet tall and she's incredibly skinny, and often prattles on enthusiastically about her tiny tits. She has a very large, mobile face with a wide mouth and eyes that often bug out in rnock fear or amazement. Actually, she has about twenty faces. Sometimes, when she's all dolled up like a fern, she looks like a freaky housewife. But when her hair is teased and she's tramping around in fauxleather pants, the effect is quite different. Whatever persona she's in on any given evening, she always screams, makes other funny noises, and chatters a lot about her nether regions. I remember introducing her to a rather conservative boyfriend of mine. He hated her. "Why does that woman have to talk about her vagina all the time?" Ellie, along with Ann Holloway and Peter Lynch, is credited with inventing a Buddies expression that I have no doubt will someday make it into Webster's: "Oh no." Except it always comes out as "Unnup." Whenever Ellie or Ann or Peter Lynch are excited about something, they'll stall off a full conniption by screaming, "Oh no. No. No. No, Please. Oh no. Please No. No. No. No. No!" in rising intensity and speed. People who don't know Ellie just think she's nuts. I think she scares a lot of people — and they miss out on casting her because of it. But she's six skinny feet of raw energy. And she can play anything. (After leaving Buddies, I made it one of my missions in life to prove that to the world. When I cast her as Ayn Rand in my play The Emotionalists, she caused nothing less than a sensation.) The rehearsal process for Theatrelife was quite melodramatic. Geoffrey,fery

the older artistic director, was played by Graham Harley. I was pretty intimidated about working with him. I knew that he had had his own theatre, The Phoenix, some years before. He was a good 25 years older than me, British, and an excellent actor. (But not as cute or fun as Christopher.) I encountered a typical acting problem with him when I asked him to "direct" a scene in the play. You see, Theatrelife contains a "play within a play," about a ship of of. death. Since the artistic director character is supposed to have directed this play — scenes of which are performed in Theatrelife — I thought it wouldaet be a good idea to let Graham try and improv directing the scene from the play within the play. Well, Graham did it, and it was fun. When we finished what I had considered an exercise, I told him that I would now be directing the final version of the play widiin the play, because, after all, I was the real director. I guess at this point Graham was confused. The way he had directed the scene for the improv was, not surprisingly, the version he preferred. We got into a huge fight. He said things like, "Of course we can do it your way, if you want it to be stupid." (That's the kind of cooperation a director really needs!} Anyway, this was my second big Buddies tantrum. I marched out of rehearsal, said I would quit the production, and went for a drink. Of course I came back later and we all made up. That fight should have been a warning sign, though. It was just like my outburst with Chris Bye, only less controlled, and widi less cause. Why did I feel so threatened, anyway? Why couldn't I just deal with Graham without getting into such a tizzy? I remember exactly how fast my heart was racing, and how much I felt was at stake at the time. This was the end! I was leaving the production and Buddies in Bad Times! And then it was over. What was happening to me? Well, I didn't know it then, but I was very close to a nervous breakdown. There was just too much happening, and my own personality and needs were quickly getting sucked into die maelstrom. Here I was, in the space of nine months, writing and directing two productions in Toronto and going down to Shaw to direct two others — with very little support from anyone. Even though I had friends, I certainly didn't have time to ask for support. Most of my time was spent either working or drinking and looking for sex. If somebody asked me what life was all about at the time, I'd say "Buddies." Everything teetered on the brink of disaster. I was oblivious. Theatrelife was successful with both audiences and critics. It was the last set

117

design that Patsy did for me before she moved off to Scotland (where, as far as I know, she is now happily married, living with her husband and children). On the final day of the show, Christopher Newton picked me up and we drove down to the Shaw Festival. I remember that whole Shaw experience as a dream, or, to be more accurate, a nightmare. I think it was brave of Christopher to have me direct Anything Goes. I'm sure a lot of people thought he was crazy, that he was obsessed with this young gay director he'd dragged down from the city to direct a musical comedy. I worked very hard on the production. I think I had decided that it was all about "letting go" or something. A few things are particularly memorable. The song "Anything Goes," for one, was done as a striptease. (Well, why not? The lyric goes: "In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking.") I revised the script quite a bit, taking out some unfunny bits. And I removed a part of the play where the Ethel Merman character dresses up as a Chinese person, bowing and saying "Ah so!" all the time. The slanty-eyed caricature of Asians was popular in the '305 when people adored movie detective Charlie Chan. In 1987, it seemed hopelessly racist and out of date. Instead, I had Nora dress up as a French chanteuse and do an Edith Piaf imitation. It worked quite well, a lot better than her acting like a cartoon "Oriental" with chopsticks in her hair. I tried to make the old jokes, many of which were quite dirty, really funny. In odier words, I didn't gloss over the sexual humour. I could see this was a dirty litde musical, and I wanted to be true to its vaudevillian history. I hate, for example, when people bypass Shakespeare's dirty jokes, when they don't even try to make the humour real. Why do a dirty joke at all, unless you're going to make it really dirty and really funny? Christopher and I had several arguments. My big concept was to do "I Get a Kick Out of You" slowly — as a ballad — because it was originally a torch song. I wanted to wipe out all memory of the song as a "jazz standard." It was supposed to serve the plot and tell a sad tale about how the Ethel Merman character was chasing "die man that got away." I had another great idea. Nora would sing the song on a giant staircase. Suddenly the lights would dim, stars would appear, and these two giant palms would swing onto the set from nowhere. I thought it was very beautiful, postmodern, and romantic. We were stepping out of the play and

accepting its melodrama; as if the play had turned into a movie set and we could admire all the fakery. Christopher saw the preview and made me cut the palms. I thought he was being brutal — he thought they took too long to swing onstage. Another time, I told Christopher I was getting frustrated trying to impose a theme on a play that was really a piece of fluff. He commiserated with me. Then I told him that I had been so frustrated when two of the actors asked a typical actor question — "Why are we coming onstage at this point?" — that I just lost it and said, "You're coming onstage to sing the next song." Christopher was aghast. "You can't do that." "Why not?" I said. "It's true, isn't it?" "But you must give the actors tools to work with." "Oh, Jesus!" I said, "and make up some stupid fabricated motivation? This is a creaky old musical and you know it. Besides, I was just kidding." I think I broke some very holy theatre rule when I told Christopher that. The first preview was a disaster. Even I could see it. Christopher sat me down and we had a very serious talk. "This is very bad, you have to do something." He thought that I needed to cut more text. He was right. I did. The actors were very upset. Some of them cried. But the old warhorse was just too long and some of it was quite unperformable. Then we had to endure a month of previews. I've never understood this quaint Shaw Festival custom. I mean, sure, preview the thing, so you have a chance to see it in front of an audience before opening. But a month?! guess it shows my general impatience and how ill-suited I am to be a normal, professional director, but I just hated that. More than anything, I hated sitting around at Niagara-on-the-Lake for a month. And every night I was supposed to go to the preview and say things like "Nora, your first song was great, honey, loved it. But in your third scene, make sure you remember to go around the left side of that table, will you? Thanks. Otherwise, marvey do!" Can you imagine the boredom? I mean, couldn't the stage manager give the actors these notes? After we made the script cuts, the preview audiences were certainly loving it. Why did I need to keep coming at all? So, without Christopher knowing, I sort of sneaked out of town. I decided, on my own, that I didn't need to go to every preview. Well, Christopher really lost it when he found out what I was doing. Our relationship was disintegrating and it really upset me. All because of a stupid directing job. After all, I used to be in love with the man. I really valued his friendship and now it was being threatened

119

because of a silly production. I began to have mixed feelings about my theatre career outside Buddies. Truthfully, I didn't care about the show — I was only doing it because Christopher wanted me to. Yes, of course, I thought it would look good on my resume. Is that any reason to be involved in a theatrical project? For Buddies, I would never work on anything unless I cared about it very deeply. Anything Goes finally opened. I was quite excited — my Dad came up from the States to see it, and finally met Sue, who came wearing a tuxedo. John Turner was in the audience. It was going to be a real event. The audience was in hysterics on opening night. Then came Bob Crew's review. It was the typical theatre-critic experience. Had Crew been sitting in the same audience? Seen the same play? He obviously had some political problems with my interpretation, but was that any reason to pretend that the production wasn't funny? Anyway, Crew's review went on and on about how my pro-sexual Toronto tactics were not going to work down at the Shaw Festival, It wasn't a review of the play. It was a review of the excesses of homosexuality. Clearly, I had hit some sort of glass ceiling. Crew's thesis was that my "camp" (read gay) attitudes had no place at the Shaw Festival. The message was obvious. It was fine for an out, campy, homosexual director to do his little plays in Toronto. But I wasn't to get too successful. I wasn't to make John Turner laugh. That was just too dangerous. Unfortunately, I had given Crew ammunition because my work wasn't as subtle as Christopher's. You see, what I had admired in Desert Song was Christophers sneaky, British camp, which was very suitable for the Shaw Festival. My "hit 'em over the head" American approach was too obvious and threatening. Of course I didn't think of my interpretation as "camp." I drought I was making a dusty old extended vaudeville sketch into something relevant, postmodern, and truly funny. Well, as I said, the audience sure loved it. They laughed all summer at Anything Goes, which played to sold-out houses. All the filthy humour had the old ladies in the crowds convulsed with hysterics. The cast had T-shirts made up with the scathing reviews printed on the back. After the opening I had to wait around for a month before I started on the "Risk," Oscar Wilde's Salome. It was agony. Camille Mitchell was back at the Shaw, but she was my only friend. I had nothing in common with the other actors, most of whom were married and straight, or gay and respectable. Trying to pick up eligible bachelors in town was almost impossible — everyone was

so closeted. I thought I was going to die of boredom. And I didn't dare complain to Christopher. We were hardly speaking now. Worse, he was offended that I didn't seem to be able to have a good time. But how could I? A typical day at the Shaw Festival (when I wasn't rehearsing) went something like this: I'd have a quiet morning, trying to read or write, or taking a walk by the lake. I'd have a late lunch with Camille (if she was free). Afternoons meant ice cream or fudge. If I wanted to do errands I had to wedge my way between the fat American tourists on the main street of town. Evenings were interminable. (After Anything Goes opened, I couldn't really stand to see the damn thing again.) I'd usually have dinner by myself and the local residents and tourists would gawk — they weren't used to guys with earrings and short shorts. (Short shorts were quite the issue at the Shaw. I remember Andrew Gillies telling Christopher how some old fart at the golf course had complained about seeing too much of Andrew's upper legs on the green. Christopher was very amused.) The company bar would finally open at 9 PM and usually there were about fifteen people gathered. I would get stoned and drunk, gossiping with Christopher and the usual gang. Then I would wander home, feeling very lonely and sexually frustrated. Some nights I would sneak away and take a cab to Hamilton. Once I picked up some boy and dragged him to the Hamilton YMCA where I was staying overnight. The next day was so humiliating. I guess we made a bit too much noise. The imperious desk clerk informed me that I was barred for life from the Hamilton YMCA. I hope that if I ever have a tombstone they put that on it: "Here lies Sky. Barred for life from the Hamilton Y!" Finally we started rehearsing Salome. I dreaded the whole thing. I've never actually dreaded directing anything before. The main problem was the casting. There were two possible choices for Salome and Herod. It could have been Wendy Thatcher and Michael Ball, who were a cool couple and would have been fun to direct. I liked them both, and they liked me. The other pair was Camille Mitchell and Barry MacGregor. Now, I wanted very much to direct Camille, and I thought she was a perfect Salome, but I didn't feel the same about Barry as Herod. I had worked with him on Cyrano, and, frankly, I didn't like him (mainly because he didn't seem to like me). And Christopher had told me outright that he was a little homophobic, that it had something to do with Barry's murky past. Well, scheduling dictated that Wendy and Michael couldn't do my show. I happily had Camille, and, unhappily, Barry.

121

Rehearsal was agony. I no longer remember what the "concept" was, but I know I was intent on solving the problem of the severed head. I just wouldn't have some fake severed head for John the Baptist. Instead, I decided to have John the Baptist's head on video at the end of the play. Earlier on, the video was used for surveillance in the palace. I remember that the production was very sexy. And that the audience at the Shaw was perplexed by it. Probably as perplexed as I was. The big problem, though, was Barry MacGregor. We hated each other. It's odd directing someone you hate. I'd never been in the situation before. When I cast my own plays at Buddies, I always cast people I liked. At the Shaw, I had to accept casting that was convenient for other people s schedules. I knew that Barry and a few others were unhappy about hopping around in my little gay production, feeding grapes to pretty boy apprentices. Also, it was close to the end of the Shaw season, and they were all very tired. Opening night went okay — except for Barry, who decided to ad lib a couple of lines. Early on in the play, Barry was supposed to say, "Welcome to my party." Well, instead he said, "Welcome to my gay party." I didn't think much about it at the time, just an unfortunate slip of the tongue. When I went back into the dressing room after the show, Camille asked, "Did you hear it?" "Hear what?" I said. "The line changes." "Oh sure," I said, "I guess Barry was just having a bad night or something." "No, I'm afraid he wasn't," said Camille, "he was planning that backstage." I was flabbergasted. "Really?" "Oh yes," said Camille, "he was trying to figure out something really silly to say, so he finally decided on that." "I wonder why?" I said. Camille wasn't sure, but I know that she resented his ad libs. Well, I mulled over why Barry improvised, and I could come to no other conclusion than that he wanted to distance himself from what he considered to be a "gay" production. It worked. The audience laughed at his ad lib. So homophobic Barry could rest assured that everyone knew that he didn't like being directed by Sky Gilbert in a very gay production of Salome. The play only had five performances, and the reviews were mixed. I think the audiences were scandalized by it all (which seemed appropriate — after all, it was called a "Risk"). I considered it an enormous flop, but over the years I've had a couple of people come up to me and offer compliments, so who knows? But the experience of directing a group of actors who were unhappy about being directed by me left me feeling angry and hurt. I left the Shaw in

a hurry and, frankly, didn't want to go back again soon. I felt that a deep rift had developed between Christopher and me, and it upset me very much. I didn't know what to do about it: we were just different. He loves to garden, pot about, and read books all by his lonesome in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I go mad there. The rift contributed to my feelings of loneliness and anxiety. It seemed that I had spent my whole summer working for nothing but grief and loneliness. I was eager to get back to Toronto, but I was still distracted and very tense. Luckily, my fall production was a remount of The Postman Rings Once. The play had been commissioned by Alberta Theatre Projects a year earlier. Michael Dobbin asked me to write a piece that would appeal to Alberta audiences. The implicit request was for a gay play suitable for an area less urban than Toronto. The Postman Rings Once is the coming-out story of a boy who works in a bookstore and falls in love with another clerk (it was based on myself and Nick McMartin). Anyway, the shy clerk gets advice about coming out from none other than Lana Turner, the dead movie star. She appears to him in dreams. The play was quite successful in Calgary. And because I was going to be away all summer, Simone and I decided that it would be easy for me to mount it on my return. Eddie Roy starred in the production (as me), and the incredibly tall, blonde, gorgeous Dana Brooks played Lana Turner. It was my first production at 12 Alexander Street (which was then Toronto Workshop Productions) and it turned out to be the biggest moneymaker in Buddies' history. Around this time, I had the great idea of asking Sue Golding to be on the board of Buddies. At the time, it seemed like the natural thing to do. She was my best friend and my biggest supporter. I knew she would be honoured. I had no idea what a difference she would make to the company. Sue's been the single biggest influence on Buddies other than myself. It was very interesting what happened to the board. Since Christopher and I were not really speaking, he missed a few Buddies board meetings. When we decided to bring in Sue, he resigned. It saddened me, but I calmed myself by thinking of my new friend in his position. Sue effectively replaced Christopher on the board, and at the same time, I brought my good friend Edward Roy on as assistant artistic director. Suddenly I had a support system. Two of my best friends were powerful members of the

123

company. I thought they would protect Buddies, which meant, at that time, that they would also protect me. Early on, Sue made it clear that she would be my protector. She understood how closely my self-esteem was wrapped up in the company, and she made it her mission to see that I (which also meant Buddies) would be protected from all adversity. I often wondered about her motives, but I've come to the conclusion that she was completely unselfish. On the one hand, she truly loved me. On the other, she could see that Buddies was a powerful force in promoting the kind of politics she represented. I think she also respected me and my work. Some might say that Sue liked the power. She would have been the first to admit it, the first to make fun of her own hunger for it. That's the great thing about Sue; she knows that power is a universal need — sometimes ridiculous, sometimes dangerous, sometimes playful — but always human. Sue's influence was not immediate — only because I think she, quite rightly, wanted to feel her way around the company first. But I soon became aware of one thing: in the past, board members had been willing to sit around and have drinks, and, generally, well, socialize. Mostly people agreed with my suggestions. The board had been a kind of rubber stamp. With Sue, it was immediately evident that she would never be comfortable as a figurehead. She couldn't help but let her pride in being an s/M-loving, dyke pervert have its effect on the company. One of the first crises that Sue and I weathered together was a decision on the part of the Canada Council to deny us funding for our Fourplay Festival. This happened while I was away at the Shaw. I remember being very upset about it. Why, suddenly, after our most successful year ever (the year we launched writers such as Daniel Maclvor, Robin Fulford, and Bryden MacDonald), would they decide to pull our funding? Buddies issued a press release locally about the grant refusal and it became news. Not all of the Buddies people supported us in this endeavour, though. I remember that David Demchuk — who had been so successful with his plays If Betty Should Rise and Touch at Buddies — decided to come out against us in a letter to NOW magazine. And his friend Jon Kaplan (AW s theatre critic) also decided not to support us. They did not believe the Canada Council should give us special support because of our gay and/or lesbian mandate. They reasoned that the Canada Council, being short of money, did not have

enough funds for everyone. It wasn't an attack on Buddies — so let's not be the kind of gays who ask for special treatment. I guess we'll never know if there was really any ill-will buried in the Canada Council's refusal to fund the Fourplay Festival that year. The denial seems suspicious, especially after the success of the previous year. But it was not the most important thing to came out of the whole debacle. This Demchuck-Kaplan alliance was a foretaste of something that Sue and I would experience in the future. David and Jon were asserting that they were "good homosexuals," while I was a "bad homosexual" — which meant that I was hysterical, seeing conspiracies in every corner. David and Jon (both out gay men) wanted to separate themselves from this "hysteria" and make it clear that they were calm, reasonable, nice homosexuals — unlike Sky Gilbert, the crazy drag queen. Later on, Buddies would see certain other gay men, and some lesbians, eager to disassociate themselves from the company because we represented a "fringe" element, but this was the first time that anybody disassociated themselves from Buddies in order to seem more "respectable." I was very angry with David, not so much for what he did, but because he did it behind my back. The issue of homophobia and the arts councils is a complex one. It's important to state that from 1979 to 1997 our relationships with the granting agencies were balanced by two conflicting forces. I'm certain there were homophobic artists on juries, and that they must have had an effect. But most of the councils had standards of political correctness that counterbalanced things. The Toronto Arts Council (under the leadership of Anne Bermonte) was very good about this. (To this day, the Toronto Arts Council is one of the few arts councils that makes a real and concerted effort to support minority artists.) I was always careful never to cry "homophobia" when we didn't get what we asked for because I recognized that we were usually getting consistent support. But the Fourplay decision seemed oddly timed. Something had to be said about it. I probably wouldn't have opened myself up to attacks from the liberal press for being hysterical if it wasn't for the influence of Sue Golding. Buddies didn't represent itself openly as a "gay and lesbian" company on grant applications until Sue Golding came along; of course, it was obvious that we produced gay and lesbian work, but Sue finally gave me the courage to be more open about that when presenting the company mandate to our funders.

125

Someone else who encouraged me to be political about the Canada Council funding problem was my new friend Tim Jones. Tim worked at TO Tickets, which at that time was a branch of the Toronto Theatre Alliance. He had lots of experience in theatre, especially as a front-of-house manager for the Grand in London. I had met him at Chaps one night — I thought he was coming on to me, but he wasn't. And we became friends. Tim is short and furry, with dark hair and intense eyes. He has a deep, assured voice and a very masculine authority — which I found sexy when we first met — and a studied, careful way of talking. Tim's unflappable, but funny in a very dry way. Sue suggested we ask him to be on the Buddies board. He seemed to be a very nice, smart, political theatre fag. Things were happening frighteningly fast. I had directed five productions in a year. Three of them were the most successful productions of my career at Buddies, and the other two were at the Shaw Festival. On top of that, I was now becoming a political figure to be reckoned with. First there was the outspoken complaint about the Canada Council funding. Then, very much under the influence of the politics at 57 Homewood Avenue, I had written an article for Xtra magazine called "Why I Am Not a Post-AiDS Fag." The article was incredibly controversial in the gay community. In it, I expressed rny frustration with novelist David Leavitt. It wasn't so much that I disliked his writing (in fact, I kind of enjoyed it) but I found his political position disgusting. Leavitt's leading characters are always middle-class, monogamous gay men, and they look with disgust and condescension upon drag queens, butch male clones, and S/M leather guys. In my article, I formulated a theory that die advent of AIDS had caused people like Leavitt to reject their lifestyle, and in fact had encouraged gay self-loathing. My opinion was then, and is now, that AIDS is no reason to limit my number of partners, or limit any activity. There is a need to wear condoms for anal sex. But that's a very small technical limitation. It's absolutely the only change I have made in my sexual life since AIDS. So that's why I didn't consider myself a "post-AiDS fag." I refused to acquiesce and say "I've found love. I've found monogamy. I go to church every Sunday and my lover and I are going to adopt." That wasn't my lifestyle before AIDS and it wouldn't be after. Any change of personal style would mean that I was backing down on my principles. My public position got me into a lot of trouble. Some fags would literally spit at me on the street after the article. I became a symbol of leather sex

and promiscuity. People would come up to me in bars and vent. Maybe that's why I found it safer to be drunk most of the time. Once Byron Ayanoglu's lover came up to me at the Barn and started yelling: "You've ruined my lover's career! He would be a famous playwright if it wasn't for you! It's all your fault." For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. A few years earlier I had produced one of Byron's plays. Was that a crime? Anyway, I was drunk, he was drunk: that's my excuse. I poured my beer on him. And in my personal life, I was certainly living up to my reputation. It had taken a long time, but I was finally living the life of the gay bachelor. No lover for me — I was perfectly happy with fuckbuddies like David Pond. I'd work like a bugger (if you'll excuse the expression) all day and into the evening (you don't direct five plays in one year — writing or adapting air of them, too — and not work hard). Then, at the end of the day, I'd have a glass of wine and a toke, and then a glass of wine and another toke, and so on until I was really stoned. Then I'd end up at the baths or at a cruisy bar and do some poppers and have wild sex. (I was starting to get addicted to poppers, too.) It was lots of fun and I figured as long as I practised safe sex, it would be my rosy future. I'm a workaholic anyway, I reasoned. My life was about two things, really: work and sex. I was so angiy about AIDS, and so unwilling to bend my principles, that I became even more promiscuous. I always obeyed safe-sex rules, but I never stopped being a slut. Living at the Homewood house really helped, because no one ever censured you. I remember coming home one night and talking with a group of my kinky Homewood roommates about a guy who wanted to pee on me. I told them that I was upset by the request. "Oh, I see, you were upset because you couldn'tget him to take a pee on you?" someone asked. "No," I said, "I was upset because he wantedto." "I don't understand," said someone else. You get the idea. Perversity was normal at 57 Homewood. Well, though I was dizzy with all the work, sex, drugs, and attention, I thought things were rolling along just great in the fall of 1987. Outside of the minor funding setback, I was on top of the world. I remember going to a Halloween party dressed for the first time as "Jane." I ripped up an old leopardskin bathrobe and appeared at the Masonic Temple dressed in scraps of fabric and not much else. I called myself "Jane" because I was trying to look like Tarzan's partner. I went around all night asking cute guys if they were

127

Tarzan. It was the first time I had ever tried to do glamorous drag. The only reason I had ever really avoided it was that with my "full figure" and height, I figured I'd have to dress up like a motherly matron — which didn't appeal to me. But I made some discoveries around that time. The lover of one of the actors in Postman helped me with my makeup. I could actually look pretty glamorous with the right makeup! And I have great legs and a completely round and hairless butt. People were staring at me at this Halloween party — with lust (which was neat). But the best thing was that nobody knew who I WAS. I was such a slut, and I'd had my name in the papers so often, that when I walked around the bars in my own clothes (by then I was wearing tight jeans, torn T-shirts, and leather jackets) people would often avoid me because they'd heard bad things about me. "Oh, there's that awful Sky Gilbert who wrote those drag plays. Those plays that just take us back a thousand years politically. And you know he wrote that terrible article in Xtra, too. Oh, don't you even think of going home with him! He looks really mean. I've heard he's into S/M. He always wears leather jackets. Ricky, I'll never speak to you again if you cruise Sky Gilbert. I mean it, never! Oh my God, people can see you're looking at him!" I'm exaggerating. But these kinds of conversations did occur. (I know because certain boyfriends told me so.) Anyway, drag freed me for a while. People didn't know Jane was Sky Gilbert. And boy, what great legs, and what a great ass! Yes, it seemed like I was on top of the world. And then something happened. I fell off. I hope this doesn't sound just too predictable, but I had a nervous breakdown. I mean, doesn't every showbiz autobiography just have to a have a drug overdose moment? I don't know if it was really an overdose. But something weird did occur. I was smoking a lot of dope and having a lot of fun. But I was under tremendous pressure and working like a fiend. Anyway, one night I woke up from a deep sleep, alone in the empty Homewood house (everyone was out fucking, I guess). It was all very strange. My heart was beating wildly and I couldn't stop it. I was having a terrible panic attack, and it just wouldn't go away. I don't remember exactly what happened after that.

The next day, my rapid heartbeat slowed. But I was still panicked. I decided that I was probably smoking too much marijuana. Maybe I had some bad grass, I don't know. A rapid heartbeat is certainly a symptom of prolonged marijuana use; add the amount of alcohol and die poppers I was ingesting and you have a big problem. Anyway, I went cold turkey off marijuana and alcohol, but a few days into the regimen I became physically ill. A week later I started to get very anxious, too. I didn't know it at the time, but I was experiencing marijuana and alcohol withdrawal. Everyone at Homewood was kind and supportive, but it was tough. I was in a constant state of anxiety for at least a month, always afraid. At first it was just a vague fear, but absolutely immobilizing. I remember considering suicide. It just seemed that there was no way out of the constant terror. Every day Bob and Sue would bring tea and sympathy to my bed. (Bob was used to ministering to his friends, many of whom were ill with HIV; he was a heroic nurse who helped a huge number of people. I don't know how he did it.) I remember that the strangest things would upset me. I tried to watch figure skating on TV, for instance. I'd get all anxious and concerned when the skaters fell. The competitiveness was completely nerve-racking and it reminded me of my figure-skating youth. I remember Sue telling me: "You'd better stop watching TV, it's making you tense." Then my anxiety began to have a corollary. It was related to memory, mainly. I thought I was losing my mind. I couldn't remember anything. From one moment to the next, I would forget what I was doing. It was like being stoned all the time without any marijuana. And then I would obsess about forgetting and get terrified. I'd walk downstairs for a cup of coffee and by the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, the purpose of my trip was forgotten. It seemed impossible to sustain any train of thought. I called the Addiction Research Foundation, but they were absolutely no help at all. I said, "I forget things and I have enormous anxiety. Am I losing my mind or is this just a marijuana withdrawal symptom?" "I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have very much information on marijuana withdrawal," they said. Fuck, I was so angry I slammed down the phone. Sue and Bob helped, but a month later I still found it hard to leave the house, and I found myself having to depend on some other friends. At first I found that I couldn't leave the house. I actually thought I was having some sort of neurological problem: I seemed unable to walk properly, as if I'd forgotten

129

how. I was very unsteady on my feet. Later, as I began to get better, I realized that my difficulty with walking was very much related to my proximity to the Church and Wellesley area. In other words, as I got closer and closer to the gay ghetto, the anxiety would get greater and greater and I'd have a harder and harder time. Edward Roy and Tim Jones were also very supportive. One day I made it over to the house where Tim lived with his new, tall, punky-looking boyfriend, Taylor. He gave me a great lecture. "What are you afraid of?" I didn't really .know, but it seemed to be a mortal terror. "Dying, I think," I said. "You're going to die," he said. "This is the AIDS era, do you think we're all going to live to be 90?" I know that sounds severe, but his words were literally sobering. Mainly because I realized that he was afraid, too. Looking back on this nervous breakdown, I have no doubt that it was caused by a combination of physiological and psychological factors. I think, first of all, that I was going through marijuana and alcohol withdrawal, and this withdrawal took at least six months. (Thanks for nothing, ARF!) Secondly, I was an emotional mess. I decided to visit a therapist, Jeff Kirby. Even though Jeff wasn't a licensed doctor, I thought he would be the best for me. He was a gay therapist whose technique involved a kind of physical therapy. Despite his big, burly shoulders and his shaved head — with a face like a TV wrestler and a body to match — there was something reassuring about him. I told him I wasn't as concerned about the physical therapy, that I just needed someone to talk to about the fact that I could hardly leave the house. I thought the most important thing was that Jeff was gay. I needed to talk about the poppers and the promiscuity without a therapist getting all judgmental. I met with Jeff and I liked him: he talked a bit of that West Coast therapy-speak ("I hear you") but he seemed to be a nice, understanding guy. Jeff was helpful when I thought I was losing my mind, but there was a kink in our relationship. He asked me, when I started therapy, if it would be okay if he submitted a script to Rhubarb! I remember thinking he was putting me in a weird position — how could I be his patient and his dramaturge? To his credit, he gave me the choice. He said he wouldn't give me his scripts if I didn't; want him to. But I was so desperate for a gay therapist,

so fraught with anxiety, that I said sure, go ahead, no problem. Looking back, I can't say that was a good move. I don't think Jeff should have submitted scripts to Buddies while he was my doctor. It was not the professional thing to do. During the winter of 1988,1 tried to work through my problems. The anxiety seemed to be abating, though it had been replaced by anger and obsession. First, I got involved in a lawsuit with Kent Staines. It's a long and grisly story — but another important part of my breakdown. After the success of Drag Queens in Outer Space, Kent decided to write a stand-up monologue for his character. He called it Lana Lust: The Bitch Stops Here. I helped him work on the piece for a while. You see, I had written a third play in the drag queen trilogy, Drag Queens III: Shriek of the Mutilated, a satire of horror movies. I read the play to all three of the drag gals and they seemed to be enthusiastic. And I talked to Kent about the fact that his stand-up show would be good publicity for the third instalment of my trilogy. I was uncomfortable about some the material in Kent's performance, but I have to admit it was funny. You see, my plays were always politically savvy. They never made fun of women, and the dirty jokes were always thematically related; the drag queens might have been the lowest of the low, but most of the jokes were related to their status and the political implications of the prejudice they faced. I thought some of Kent's stand-up routine — even the title — was misogynist and gratuitous. I thought it was a harmless, silly show that contained no ideas at all. But I made the mistake of supporting him at the time, flattered, I guess, that he was inspired to take the character further. All that changed when Kent decided to drop out of Drag Queens III. I was informed of his defection in a rather offhand manner. When I tried to put an ad in his Lana Lust program for my third drag queen instalment, he wouldn't let me. When I asked him, he said, almost as an afterthought, "Oh, I won't be doing your play." Well, that was it. I was furious. I thought I would never forgive him, although in time I did. I became obsessed with the legal aspects of copyright. Did Kent have the right to take my character and make it his own? Because now that he had dropped out of all future productions of the drag queen plays, I wouldn't have much hope of reviving them in Toronto. It sure seemed like a sleazy trick. Kent knew that he was identified with the role in

131

Toronto. So, while working on a sequel of his own, he had pretended that he was committed to my sequel, only to drop out at the last minute. This, after I had approved of his piece, and even helped him with it! Of course, if Kent hadn't dropped out of my sequel, I would have allowed his production without protest. I had no problem supporting his show as long as one of its effects was to contribute to the legend of Lana Lust as written by Sky Gilbert. But if it meant that Kent was going to be more identified with the creation of Lana than I was — well, that made me furious. It was a very complicated legal matter, because I was accusing Ken of stealing not dialogue, but a fictional character. What are the rights of a playwright in this situation? I found a literary lawyer who said that, though it was an odd case, I had every legal right to object. I had created Lana Lust, and Kent couldn't just write his own play about her without my permission. Of course, Kent claimed he contributed to the creation of my character with his performance. But I could just as well claim that since I directed the play, his performance was created with my help. My lawyer sent a threatening letter to Kent, and then Kent's lawyer sent a letter back stating that I had given him verbal permission to perform his play. Unfortunately, this was true. Of course I wouldn't have given him that permission if I had know he was going to drop out of mine. The battle got messy when I refused to back down. Kent sicced his producer, Jerry Doiron, on me. It was one of the low points of my life. I had met Jerry years before — he was an old friend of Patsy Lang's (and, supposedly, of mine). During our luncheon, Jerry said that if I launched a lawsuit against Kent Staines, he would "destroy" me. He pointed out that he had lots of connections at the Canada Council. For months I was obsessed with hatred for Staines and Doiron. It was very galling. I realized that when an old friend like Jerry could turn on me at the slightest provocation, I really didn't have many friends. At least not when they were theatre people. I couldn't get it out of my head. In retrospect, it all makes sense. My obsession was again related to my identification with Buddies. In a way, I had come to resent it. You see, early on I made a little deal with the devil. I traded my visibility as a writer for my identification with the company. Instead of going out into the marketplace and trying to sell my queer writing, which I knew was a hopeless cause, I'd created a protective cocoon called Buddies. But now Buddies was getting all the publicity and my writing was getting

short shrift. It all came to a head with Kent's actions. My writing didn't seem to matter, and the play that I'd created didn't matter. All that mattered was die Buddies creation — Lana Lust. My play would be forgotten, my writing would be forgotten, but Kent's portrayal of my character would live on forever. Eventually I had to drop the lawsuit; my initial mistake meant permission. It made me very angry, but I knew I was beat. So instead of trying to stop Kent's production, I asked my lawyer to insist that Kent take my name off the program. That way I had no association with his play. It was ironic, since I had just spent the last two months trying to keep the character of Lana for myself. But if there was nothing I could do to stop Lana Lust: The Bitch Stops Here, then at least I didn't want to be held responsible for Kent's politically stupid stand-up comedy routine. Kent's show was very popular and he toured it worldwide. (Remember how he'd almost refused the part in the original Drag Queens on Trial because he was worried about the effect it would have on his "career"?) Of course, I didn't receive royalties because I had legally dissociated myself from the production. But that didn't matter. It was more important that the integrity of my original character was protected. Of course, my precautions were pointless. To this day, people come up and compliment me on my hilarious play Lana Lust: The Bitch Stops Here. I just smile politely and thank them. At the time, however, it seemed like the whole world was against me. And, at the same time, another obsession was keeping me occupied: trying to get my plays produced outside of Buddies. This was the first time since I had started the company seven years earlier that such a thing had even occurred to me. I had been so busy building a secure place for my own and other writers' work that it never occurred to me to worry about approaching outside producers. But for the first time in years, I was driven to knock on doors as a writer. I guess I was becoming afraid of my attachment to Buddies, of how much Buddies had become me. I went to various independent producers with script ideas, to Theatre Direct and Tapestry Music Theatre. I was rejected over and over again. It seemed to me, during this obsessive period, that my whole creative life was linked to Buddies. What if something happened to the company? Would I have the chops as a writer to survive? It was scary.

133

I didn't have much of a support system because I hadn't had time to establish friendships outside Buddies. Tim Jones seemed like a new friend, and Ed was a helpful "work" friend. Sue was a friend, too, of course, but she was also involved with Buddies. Everyone I knew was involved with the company. How could I talk about my ambivalent feelings about Buddies with them? Eddie and Sue hadn't done anything to make me question my friendships with them. But I was embroiled in a lawsuit with a former professional friend (Kent), and another former dinner companion (Jerry Doiron) was threatening to destroy me. This made me look more closely at all my relationships with professional ties. Were the people I worked with my real friends? This question was at the centre of my paranoia. It became difficult for me to talk to Sue, because I was afraid she was a part of the problem. Sue became a bit frustrated with me. I remember at one point coming to her and saying, "I know it's paranoid, but I think I might have multiple sclerosis." And she answered, in frustration, "Maybe you do." I distrusted everyone. I felt friendless. Rhubarb! was very popular around this time, and Hillar Liitoja held a sort of tribute to me at Bersani and Carlevale's on Church Street. I remember attending the party, my hands quivering, barely able to make a speech. Here were all these people singing my praises, but I felt I couldn't really trust them. "Thanks so much," I said. But really I was thinking, "Are these people really my friends?" So, even though my memory problems were under control, I was still anxious because I'd begun to feel that I was completely alone. Jeff Kirby was very good at helping me understand what was going on. We looked at the facts. Jeff told me that my anxiety about losing my memory, ironically, could be attributed to withdrawal. But what about my obsessions? I was furious at Kent, and Buddies, for stealing Lana Lust. I was driven to seek work outside the company for the first time. I distrusted my friends because they were all involved in my work. The problem? I had no life at all outside of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. (The only person I could really talk about all this with was my therapist. Everyone else in my life was involved with the company. I ignored the fact that Jeff had just submitted a play for the next year's Rhubarb! If I had fretted over my therapist also being connected to my job I would have ended up in the loony bin!) I had been abusin arijuana and the alcohol for one reason: to escapecap

from the endless circuit of pressure. I could never get away from my work because all my friends were involved in it. I decided to stop smoking dope and cut down on the alcohol, and literally "get a life" — outside Buddies. I knew it wouldn't happen right away (in fact, I didn't really get a new life for another ten years), but my breakdown made me realize that as much as I loved my theatre friends, they were still theatre friends. And that I had to get away. This revelation finally wrenched me out of my anxiety and paranoia. What also helped was my gradual physical detoxification. The good days slowly began to catch up with the bad ones. I could actually chart it. For the first torturous month I would have one good day a week. Then, the next obsessive month, two or three. Finally, after six months, I only had one bad day of forgetting and crippling anxiety a week. (And I could usually see it coming.) Finally, that one day a week became twice a month. This was a light in a very dark forest. I remember painting my room and listening to Michael Jackson's "Man in the Mirror" — and being inspired. Imagine. I still have a couple of crippling days every three months. It will probably never go away. (If anyone involved with Toronto's Addiction Research Foundation reads this, here's a news flash: there is such a thing as marijuana addiction, and there are side effects to going cold turkey!) Two things that helped were Edward Roy and drag. And, at the time, they were connected. Eddie was directing me in a piece called Late Night Queen, a very personal monologue about drag, expressing why it was important to me. First of all, he was very understanding. I was so fucked up that I didn't know if I could remember my lines. It was all connected with my anxiety. I thought, "If I can remember my lines then my memory can't be that bad, I can't possibly be going insane." Eddie encouraged me, "Of course you can remember lines." And I did. Then there was the drag itself. Drag was a place for me to hide. I could get away from Buddies and from responsibility. I could get away from being important and recognized and "male." I could be carefree and silly and stupid and also submissive and vulnerable. I was beginning to think that a lot of people were intimidated by me and my success, that guys in bars were avoiding me because I was so outspoken and political. I told Jeff Kirby that I had designated drag as my marijuana substitute. Smoking marijuana had been a method of blocking out all the judgements of the world, a way of

135

going to a bar and ignoring the people I thought were looking at the "public" me rather than the "private" me, the "crusader" rather than the "ordinary guy." In a drugged haze I could ignore peoples judgements. The disguise of drag gave me the same opportunity. My "Jane" character could be vulnerable about her need for love. This was a very important part of my quest to "get a life." Finding a personal life meant finding love. Though I would always be promiscuous, I was still human. The fuckbuddy relationship I had with David Pond just wasn't enough. I realized there was a difference between a fuckbuddy and a lover: romance. I think that's the real reason why my drag character was so important. In Late Night Queen, I lip-synched a torch song from the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Song and Dance that was all about longing for a perfect mate. My breakdown taught me that I needed to give myself another chance at love. I had gone too far at 57 Homewood, imagining I could be happy without a partner. I would have to risk all the pain again, even if it recalled those lost, sad feelings about Glenn. Certainly boys would hurt me — it was a natural adjunct to putting my feelings on the line. Suddenly I realized that I needed an open relationship. I finally understood the reason for the open relationships I had lampooned in The Dressing Gown. I needed to find a (probably sluttish) boy who would love me even though I was a promiscuous drag queen (and a very complex person). Jane would help me realize my inner need for candlelight and moonlight walks — the whole shlemazle. I know it sounds silly. Jane wasn't a real person. And it wasn't that I thought somehow that Jane was going to fall in love; I just thought that I could get close to my vulnerability through her. I believed I could then use that vulnerability to snag a boyfriend when I was dressed as a man. (I was right, that's what happened later!) And I wasn't a schizophrenic. Jane wasn't a part of my psyche I couldn't control. On the contrary, she was "the real me" that I was gradually bringing out to greet the world. Of course, at the time I didn't understand the irony of bringing the "real me" out to greet the world in a play. Or that I would eventually have similar problems with "Jane": that she became more famous than Sky, and have just as many responsibilities. Late Night Queen wasn't a particularly successful production. I remember thinking, at the time, that everybody was writing AIDS plays, and here I

was writing Late Night Queen about all my inconsequential personal problems. People were dying, and I was being selfish. Now, I'm not so sure. Much of the struggle documented in my play had to do with my battles with a homophobic world. And my solution — the protection of drag. And that drag was a thing a lot of people hated. My little play dealt with all these concerns. Does the tragedy of AIDS mean we should stop being concerned with them? I'm not ashame or producing Late Night Queen in the middle of the AIDS hysteria. I think that personal development and the battle against homophobia become more important when we're in the middle of an epidemic. Anyway, the Toronto Star leapt on the production photo and put my fulllength drag picture on the cover of the entertainment section. My family was concerned: what was Sky up to now? Someone told me that Christopher cut the picture out of the paper and put it on the Shaw bulletin board with a caption, something like: "Watch out, this could be you! This is what happens to ex-Shaw directors!" I thought it was very sweet. Late Night Queen was part of the Spring 1988 Fourplay Festival that had been denied grant funds. Finally getting the shows running was an heroic venture. Daniel Maclvor, Ken McDougall, Edward Roy, and I banded together. We agreed not to be paid for our work, and there were only three plays that year because we had so little money. As I began to recover from all my personal anxiety, the professional struggle helped me to keep going. I've always loved a crusade. So, another part of "the cure" was part of my original sickness: I threw myself into Buddies again. I only wish that Fourplay had been better. Daniel Maclvor had written a play that was kind of funny (but not much else) called Two Wacky Guys. His work was undergoing some very interesting developments, and wavering between two contrasting styles. For the Tarragon Theatre, he was working on a naturalistic play, Somewhere I Never Travelled, about a young man who visits his home in the Maritimes and almost incidentally confronts his family with his homosexuality. For Rhubarb!, however, Daniel was experimenting with something different. The pieces had a surrealistic quality; there was less character development, few realistic scenes, and a complete concentration on the rhythm of language. It was poetic, musical, rhythmic, funny, and surrealistic. The Right One (which

137

he wrote with Michelle Jelley), Theatre Omaha's Production of The Sound of Music (directed by Edward Roy), and finally Yes I Am and Who Are You? (again directed by Eddie), exemplified his new style, and were all produced by his fledgling company, Dada Kamera, at Buddies. (This style would come to full flower in 1990 when Maclvor teamed up with Ken McDougall for Two-To-Tango.) I thought Daniel's Rhubarb! work was much better than the naturalistic pap the Tarragon required of him. In fact, it seemed to me he was selling out and rejecting a truer, more profound style in order to get a mainstage production at Tarragon. The two plays Daniel offered us for the two early Fourplays (Materialerial Benefits and Two Wacky Guys] were basically traditional, somewhat predictable, queer comedy/dramas in the manner of his Tarragon work. To be fair, I don't think that Daniel was very proud of Two Wacky Guys, but we desperately needed new work, and because of the lack of funding, had little possibility of convincing playwrights to write for us. So we literally begged him to let us do it. This was at a time when a lot of people were beginning to realize that Daniel was deeply talented. I still wasn't convinced that he was much more than a great actor with some smart, funny ideas. But I certainly thought he had potential. So a tug-of-war developed between Buddies and Tarragon for Maclvor's soul. I saw Tarragon as the force of mediocrity, trying to persuade him to write naturalistic plays in which gay people were presented in a "family" context. Buddies, however, encouraged Daniel's queer experimentation — we were still one of the few theatres in Toronto inciting artists to develop avant-garde material. I wrote him a letter after the run of Somewhere I Never Travelled. In it I urged him to continue writing gay work. Later, he told me that he really cherished those words. But the proof is in the pudding — the experimental style that Daniel developed at Buddies became his signature and the gateway to his success. As Daniel became more involved with Ken McDougall, I began to see that Ken was a little in love with Daniel. They never had a sexual relationship — that I know of. It was a litde irritating to me, this habit people had of always falling in love with Maclvor (they probably still do). I don't blame him, even though, I think — consciously or unconsciously — he sometimes uses this to his advantage. Daniel has the personality of a Broadway musical; you just want to hum him. Some people are simply lethally charming, they can't

help it if everyone is nuts about them. But McDougall eventually became so enamoured of Maclvor that he was jealous of other people working with him. Specifically, Daniel Brooks. Well, we weren't going to be stopped by the Canada Council, even if we had to beg playwrights for permission to produce tlieir work! At that heroic little Fourplay we also produced Ken Keobke's His Special Friend, which Edward Roy directed. Our lesbian offering was a play written by a gay man — Dick Benner, the director of Outrageous and Too Outrageous — about an ageing lesbian actress. The productions may not have been universally memorable, but witli Ken and Ed and myself acting and directing everything for free, we somehow managed. One thing that helped me get through that cold spring was a trip to Key West. Part of my rehabilitation with Jeff Kirby involved deciding to take more time for myself— and to try and enjoy something other than work and sex. With my annual Buddies salary having reached $25,000 a year, I was feeling rich. Making a living by running my own theatre was enthralling. But I never seemed to have money. Where did it all go? Well, since most days I had been getting stoned and visiting the baths, the cash disappeared pretty quickly. I never had any money for luxuries like pretty clothes, expensive dinners, or CD players. (Even now I still use the stereo that I bought back in 1985, and I have never been able to afford a new computer. After leaving Buddies, my yearly income was cut in half.) Basically, I'm not a very practical person, and yet I worry endlessly about finances. I think that if you've never had much money, you can't ever stop worrying. I don't know how I managed to put aside money for Key West (I could only afford to go for ten days a year), but it was a testament to my newfound dedication to "getting a life." Going south was a very big deal for me because 1 don't travel well. I'm a Sagittarius, which means that I'm supposed to be a fun-loving, travellingvellin. bachelor. I'm none of those things. I find flying nerve-racking, and I'm very attached to my little apartment and my home territory. It usually takes me a few days to acclimatize myself when I travel, and sometimes the process takes up most of the vacation. In addition, I love working. The idea of having free time — time in which I don't write, act, or direct — seems like a nightmare. In fact, I've never fully understood the whole concept of vacations. I think it

139

was George Plimpton (in his oral biography of Truman Capote) who noted that famous people are often alone and depressed on holidays. My life has always revolved around the creative work I adore, so the idea of getting away from it for Thanksgiving or Christmas or Easter has always left me cold. Workaholics just don't make good vacationers. But Key West is different. First of all, it's quite simply paradise. My views on the place are pretty romantic, I guess, and part of its magic for me is that Tennessee Williams wrote Streetcar and The Rose Tattoo there. Every time I go to Key West, I make a pilgrimage to Tennessee Williams' old cottage, now owned by his brother. It's a very unpretentious little yellow building in a suburban area of Key West. The only thing that hints at romance is the gazebo on the front lawn and the tiny writing hut you can glimpse in the backyard. One interesting fact, with homophobic implications: Tennessee Williams' house is not a tourist site or a national shrine. It's just a house. No marker, no plaque, no tours, no nothing. In fact, at first I had trouble finding the place. Now that I've found it, my heart always stops when I ride, on my little rented bike, by the old cottage and the red house next door where you'll see "The Rose Tattoo" printed over the doorway (the movie version with Anna Magnani and Burt Lancaster was filmed there). Now, consider this: across from my favourite gay guesthouse (Lighthouse Court) is Ernest Hemingway's mansion. This edifice (which I've never visited, by the way) is one of the most tasteless examples of commercial exploitation of American cultural history that I've ever seen. It was once a beautiful place. It has a very southern, antebellum style, with expansive ironwork balconies, lazy trees, and trellises. Admittedly, it's a prettier house than Tennessee's little suburban cottage. But its beauty is marred by the endless lines of bloated, camera-toting middle-class tourists who queue up to view it every day, and by the ugly signs and the Coke machines in the backyard. Has Hemingway's home been made into a shrine by the Key West Powers That Be because it's a prettier structure? Or perhaps because he's considered a better writer than Williams? I don't think so. I think the manner in which the houses have been treated is a comment on the way we treat our gay writers. I mean what writer could be gayer than Williams (besides, perhaps, me)? And what writer could be straighter than Hemingway (besides, perhaps, Norman Mailer)? In addition to the Hemingway shrine, there are countless bars and tourist traps in downtown Key West that make reference to Hemingway (Papa's

is just one.) Key West itself is a kind of shrine to him. But no one even knows where Tennessee Williams' house is. I think that Key West wants to be associated with Hemingway because straight tourists are attracted to the image of the burly, hard-drinking, hard-fucking writer. They're not quite as excited to be reminded that Williams used to suck on his beautiful young lover's huge cock (apparently Frankie was very well endowed) in his Key West bungalow — that is, when he wasn't penning poignant, poetic monologues for Blanche DuBois. Anyway, I always try and hop off my bike at least once per trip to stand in front of Tennessee's house and do my private homage. Even if nobody else cares, I do. What sold me on vacations in Key West, however, was not just the romance of visiting an unrecognized shrine to one of my theatrical idols. No, there's also the weather, and the boys. I was raised in New England. We'd trek to the beach every summer, my aunt and uncle and three cousins, my parents, my sister, and myself hauling our brightly coloured umbrellas, beach chairs, and picnic lunches down to the water for some eagerly anticipated sun-basking. And bask we did. We tormented crabs, ran from icky jellyfish, waited impatiently for the Good Humor Ice Cream Man, strolled to the lighthouse, and swam through the eelgrass to the floating dock. That experience epitomizes my most idyllic memories of childhood. I know you're not supposed to lie in the sun these days, but it's one of those habits — like eating, sleeping, and having sex — that I just can't seem to break. I'll never forget the first time I went to Key West. I arrived in the early afternoon at Lighthouse Court, one of the most beautiful gay resorts in town. They call it a "clothing-optional compound for men" — which means it's a sort of a bathhouse. But what a bathhouse! The place is circled by a high white picket fence and consists of several huge old two-storey white houses surrounded by majestic swaying palms. A clapboard path leads you to a kidney-shaped pool edged by lush tropical plants, a poolside restaurant/bar, and whirlpool. When I saw all this for the first time, I just knew I was in heaven. I ran to my little room, stripped to my skimpiest G-string, and plopped myself out on the upper deck to watch the men go by. Five types of men stay at Lighthouse Court in Key West. There's the

141

beautiful muscle boys from South Beach, who drop in for the sadistic pleasure of enjoying sex with their perfect boyfriends right in front of you. There's the middle-aged men and their young tricks (either prostitutes or lucky boys who've snagged a sugar daddy). Then there's the "old old" men and the "regular guys." I put myself in the final category. I'm very much a voyeur and an exhibitionist, so it was fun for me to just lie around the pool and watch other guys have sex. Occasionally, I'd flirt with the tricks who were itching to cheat on their daddies. ("He's gone shopping again. . . . I think I have about an hour. . . .") And sometimes, late at night, sleazy town rough trade would jump the wall and cruise the rooms. But unlike the other "regular guys" at Lighthouse Court, I didn't like fooling around with the other men who stayed there. I was turned off by all the socializing that was required. One year I made the mistake of getting chatty with a really funny guy from New Jersey. He was a hoot, but he was on my case to go shopping all the time (of course, I could barely afford the guest house, much less clothes). And in the evenings we were supposed to go out to dinner (with what money?), and then have a nap until very late — at which time everyone gathered at the whirlpool for a group grope. The next morning, of course, would bring breakfast and gossip ("I think your hand was in the lap of that stud from Atlanta, or am I wrong?"). All this social fucking was too competitive for me. So, during the "regular guy" naptime I'd just sneak off to the video store and have sex with the boys on Spring Break. That way I'd avoid having to socialize with a lot of boring middle-class types and still get laid. Because, of course, I didn't have time to chat — I was busy writing. I would take my laptop (at the time I could only afford a word processor), slip in some batteries, and plant it on a table beside the pool. Every morning I'd be up at eight (believe it or not) and work for about four hours in my special spot. People always asked if I was writing the great American novel. "No ... the great Canadian one," I would say. It was my favourite place to write. I'd put on a CD and play a special opera or symphony (I was into Poulenc at the time) and start typing — while gazing at the pool, the trees, and the boys. Lost in my own world, in the afternoons I would lie in the sun and dream up more stuff to write. I wrote quite a number of plays there. And each time I'd go to Key West, I'd fantasize about moving, thinking how wonderful it was to be free of Buddies. It was all very liberating. A

couple of times, in later years, when I'd get back from Key West, I would start to talk about leaving Buddies. In the spring of 1988, however, the trip was just a great pick-me-up. By the summer 1 was beginning to feel like my old self again (or perhaps I should say, my raw self!). It was about this time that Sue Golding began to really grab the reins as board member. When she said she would not be a figurehead she meant it. It was an historic time. I remember having a board meeting out on the big deck on the third floor of 57 Homewood Avenue. Sue — our new president — was there, as was board member Tim Jones and my assistant artistic director, Edward Roy. We were trying to figure out how to move ahead after the Canada Council blocked our funding for Fourplay. Should we change our approach? Should we reproach them for their lack of support? Should we do the unthinkable — back down and not even produce a gay and lesbian theatre festival? Sue, in characteristic fashion, took over. "The only thing to do is go bigger this year. Ask for even more money. Make it an even bigger event." I thought this was a litde foolhardy, but something happened at that meeting. I gave complete control over to Sue. Our professional relationship was based on a very special deal, which we articulated many times and ultimately incorporated into the constitution of Buddies. Sue was the "administrative/ financial/policy" head of the company. I was the artistic head. Sue's job was not only to make sure that the general manager was doing a good job and that the books were balanced, but also to handle all issues of policy that were not artistic. This meant hiring and firing, determining the company mandate and the political positions the company might take, and representing the company in the press. I was completely comfortable with this arrangement and it worked well until Sue left in 1994. So, Sue's suggestion became law. But how would we fight back with our new and improved Fourplay? We all agreed that the biggest problem was the audience. It was difficult to get gay and lesbian people out to see gay theatre — and it seemed to be getting worse as time went on. Why? Well, I think the problem was twofold. First, there was AIDS. People everywhere were cocooning. Personally, I don't think cocooning is a sensible reaction to AIDS. It's not a plague, and not easily transmitted: you don't get it from going to a gay theatre. But many queers had bought into the mindset that the best way to stay safe was to stay home. (Could cul-

143

tural nourishment actually be dangerous to your health?) I've always tried to encourage the idea that theatres are modern churches. Of course I have a huge distrust of conventional, homophobic religion, but I think that people need places to worship — to feel inspired and divine. (That's why, years later, it seemed appropriate that the Alexander Street Buddies was designed like a pagan temple.) Many disagree. From the very beginning, a number of gay and lesbian people were unable to understand the need for a gay theatre. They felt that the idea of gay theatre, that gay and lesbian culture itself, was "ghettoizing." In fact, I could divide gays and lesbians into two categories — the "queers" and the "next-door neighbours." Queers are people who see that being gay or lesbian isn't just making a choice about who you love or about who you share your genitals with. For queers, being gay or lesbian is a way of life. They are more sexual. They accept difference. They're interested in intellectual and emotional challenge. Often they're pagans (worshipping something other than God). For "next-door neighbour" gays and lesbians, it's important to resemble straight people as closely as possible. These people try to imitate the customs and morality of straights; they want to get married in a church and adopt children. They deny that they are any more sexual than the next guy. Buddies arrived at the high point of the gay liberation era, the gay movement that had its spiritual birth at Stonewall in 1969. Back then a bunch of drag queens, dykes, and tough little sluts fought back when the police harassed their gay bar, the Stonewall, in New York City. In 1979, when gay pride was at its height, Harvey Milk was assassinated and Anita Bryant marched against us. But the fags loved sex and the dykes loved radical politics. This heady mix filled us with pride during the '705, but it could not stand the onslaught of AIDS (following so closely on the heels of Anita Bryant) in the early '8os. Of course there were always conservatives. But it wasn't until the CDC defined AIDS in 1984 that they really came into their own. It's my contention that people became so terrified of AIDS they actually believed being conservative might protect them. The "next-door neighbour" types, like many in our post-AiDS culture, seem to think that the pro-sexual radicalism of the '6os caused AIDS, but these people never actually take this train of thought to its logical conclusion. Think about it. The '6os marked the birth of feminism, the invention of

the pill, and sexual liberation. To be consistent, a rejection of the '6os means retreating all the way back to the '505. It means embracing homophobia, sexism, and the nuclear family. But the "next-door neighbour" types don't have the time, energy, or intelligence to take their hatred of the '6os all the way, because if they did, they would literally be forced to hate themselves. Anyway, when I first started Buddies in 1979,1 was able to ride high on positive queer energy — because Stonewall had made us fierce and proud. Another reason fags and dykes were more interested in my work in the late 'yos was that no one else was doing it. Nowadays, of course, there are gay and lesbian movies everywhere. You'll notice, of course, that the lesbians in these movies still look like straight girls and have very long nails (inconvenient for the practicalities of lesbian lovemaking). And the fags are very middle-class and don't talk dirty. (When mainstream movies do present drag queens — like in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar— they are very wholesome and unsexual.) These movies might be seen — even by gay people — as representative of our culture, but I don't think they are. I certainly don't think that the recent mainstreaming of gay culture has made Buddies or any other gay institution irrelevant. Bert Archer, a neoconservative gay Toronto journalist, recently wrote that we don't need gay institutions any more, and that Toronto doesn't need Glad Day Books (our local gay bookstore). I beg to differ. Can I can get the specific porn I like at regular stores like Chapters? And what about every single book ever written by Francis King or James Purdy? These are two of my favourite gay authors — Glad Day has their complete works on the shelf because they're gay. Chapters personnel look at me blankly when I ask about them. Speaking of authors, it's interesting to note that Canadian writers Scott Symons and Timothy Findley clearly represent these two different extremes of gay life (queer versus conservative). And I have very weird connections with both of them. Scott Symons once phoned me when I was living at Homewood. He said, "Hi, I'm Scott Symons. You may or may not know of me, but we have something in common. We're the bad boys of gay Canadian literature. I did most of my work before you came on the scene, but I think our reputations are a lot alike. And I think we should meet. What do you say?" Well I was still haunted by my relationship with Christopher Newton, so I was very

145

tentative about any sort of relationship with an older man. But I was flattered, and my interest was piqued. We met at Colby's, a strip bar, one night. I noticed right away that Scott was very sexual. Hypersexual, you might say. In fact, I think that Scott Symons might actually be hornier dian I am (something I never thought possible)! And he was definitely flirting with me. He asked, "Could I see Jane sometime? I think all that flesh, all that exhibitionism is a wonderful thing. I'd really like to go out with Jane!" Well, Jane didn't want to go out with him. Jane didn't really want to spend all evening with a fuzzy, priapic Canadian writer who was all hands. Scott came over to Skys house once and — this is going to sound terribly naive — I let him put some pornography on my VCR. He found some dirty tapes lying around in my room (why did I let him in my room?). I sometimes watch porn with friends just for fun — not for sex — because it can be very funny if you watch it in a certain way. Well, lo and behold, I was chatting about something, with my back to Scott, and when I turned around he was masturbating. It gave me such a fright. I don't feel bad telling you all this because Scott is known as a bad boy. He's very sexual and proud of it (and I'm even kind of proud of him myself for being such an aggressive, horny old dog!). He told me all about his open relationship with his lover and all the lovely boys he meets at his house in Morocco. I'm not dishing him for coming on to me. It was flattering, but he wasn't my type, so I herded him out of my apartment. It sort of put a damper on our friendship. My experience with Timothy Findley was quite the opposite, and illustrates the difference between the two kinds of fags. The Church Wellesley Review is a quarterly literary insert in Xtra magazine. They once published some of my poetry. Timothy Findley wrote an introduction to the insert, and in it he celebrated the fact that (and I'm paraphrasing) newer gay poets were not writing about sex as much as earlier gay poets once did. It was obvious that he didn't consider sex a proper subject for poetry. Now this might not have made me furious, but I heard some relevant Findley gossip just before the whole Review debacle. A young gay editor complained to me that he had asked Findley to write an introduction to an anthology of gay poetry, but Findley pulled out at the last minute. His reason? The work was too sexual. I remember how disappointed the editor was; in fact, he ended up cancelling the anthology. And it just seemed to me that Findley's action epitomized what's wrong with closeted gay writers. They

can hurt young gay writers more than straight people can. Their inhibitions can oppress — even stop — young queer art and ambition. Now Findley defenders, of course, will say that he is out. But there are degrees to "out." And you might think I'm quibbling, but it's very important. Findley can present himself in any way he wishes but his lifestyle is not that of all gay men. Findley is a "respectable" homosexual (he calls his lover his "friend" in public). When a respectable homosexual gains fame, homophobic straight people sigh and say, "Why can't you be a nice homosexual, like him? And why do you have to write about that dirty gay stuff all the time? Why can't you write like Timothy Findley? He's a nice man, and HE doesn't even like all that gay wnVzVzg/" People such as Findley, by parading their respectability, make it harder for us who aren't so mainstream. (Of course, this is a problem with Canadian literature in general, not just gay writing. The milder cheese, if I may use a metaphor, is always displayed at the top of the barrel, whereas the ripe, smelly, really tasty stuff is left to rot, unenjoyed, at the bottom!) So I wrote a letter to Xtra and complained about Findley's prudish introduction to the Review. A feud resulted. Findley's "friend," Bill, wrote a letter to Xtra defending his "friend" and denouncing me in no uncertain terms. For a while Findley and I didn't talk to each other, although that changed later when he performed at a benefit at Buddies on George Street. I could be one of those artists who says, "I'm a writer first, and a gay man second." But what does that mean? I must write about what's important to me. When I sit down at that computer and put on that Massenet opera and start that furious typing, I'm in my own little creative world. It's my sanctuary, the one place where no other little voice is going to pop in and say, "What you're writing is inappropriate and offensive. Timothy Findley wouldn't like it, and it won't sell." Since I left Buddies, I've discovered that writing is the one place in my life that is my own place — it's better than drugs, better than drag — where I'm truly happy and alone. I don't want to share that space with those horrible voices. Anyway, the writers I enjoy don't write to sell. Joe Orton let the dirty images flow; so did Genet. So does Dennis Cooper and Gary Indiana and James Purdy and even the very British Francis King. The important thing about writing, in my view, is finding an authoritative voice, a voice that makes us believe that it all really happened. I hate picking up a novel or a play and feeling that it's all been written. "Oh, what lovely images! What a striking turn of phrase!" Yuck. In the best writing, we forget about the writer

147

and writing. We even suspect that there might be no writer at all. We think that what we're reading is real, or personal confession. Recently, I've started writing novels. I realize that I run the risk of being dismissed as a wannabe gay Kerouac — a typist, not a writer. I think my work can be compared to his in one way only — it is personal and confessional and all mixed up with my own life. Sorry, but that's the way it is. I'm having the same trouble today with my novels that I once had with Drag Queens on Trial. People thought Drag Queens was so real that it was being improvised every night. People think my novels are so real that they must be my own life. But they're not. You're reading about my life now. The other stuff is art. But I digress. By 1988, when we were agonizing over what to do about Fourplay, the advent of AIDS had given the "next-door neighbour" types reason to consolidate their position. Some of them were starting to hate Buddies because they thought that being gay or lesbian should be the same as being straight. They believed there was no need for a gay theatre. Sue and I believed that difference was crucial. That the "abnormal" had to be nurtured. Neither of us like mainstream culture or mainstream ideas. We figured that if being gay wasn't different then it didn't have a hell of a lot to interest us. We thought that sexual perversion opened a door to radical politics. As Jim Eigo puts it, "What's the use of being gay if you can't be different?" Both of us knew that sex — the great equalizer — shows us that the priest can bow down and worship the hooker and the judge can lick the foot of the thief. Sue came up with an idea that succeeded in two ways — we were able to confront the Canada Council and the "next-door neighbour" types at the same time. "Why don't we sponsor a festival of all the arts — visual arts, music, dance, whatever — that celebrates all aspects of queer life? Fourplay would be at its centre. This festival would create more interest in the plays." We all thought it was a great idea. But what would we call it? We mulled it over for a while and finally Eddie suggested "Queerculture." What a great name! It would piss off a lot of people, but it would make the issue clear. We would be celebrating our difference. I felt good about the idea, and fairly secure. I had Sue protecting Buddies, and Queerculture was like drag — a cocoon of queerness in which we all could be safer than ever from the outside world.

My next play was written very much under the influence of Sue Golding and her pro-sex ideas. It was called Lola Starr Builds Her Dream Home. Lola Starr was my first drag musical, a collaboration with Winnipeg composer Cathy Nosaty. Where does it lie on the charm meter? Well, I'd have to say it would break the dial. When I wrote Lola, I put aside all worries about sugar-coating my ideas. I was "in recovery" and I wanted to produce a play that would charm the pants off the audiences. The part of Lola was originally written for Dana Brooks, but then Sue convinced me to take the lead role. Edward Roy, his new boyfriend Steven Cumyn, and their roommate Deb Kirshenbaum played most of the other parts. I had a great plan: I would direct the first week of rehearsals with Ed standing in as Lola, then Ed would take over and direct for the rest of the rehearsals. Hidden beneath the camp was a revolutionary message: the play was about love and violence. And sex and violence. Mainly it was about violence. It was based on the story of Lana Turner and Johnny Stompanato, Lana's abusive boyfriend, who was murdered in her house late one night in the '505. It was a huge scandal. Lana went on trial for killing him, but her daughter took the rap. The teenager got off with little more than a finger wagging. She grew up to be a lesbian. I thought this was a very juicy gay story. I wanted to explore why someone — male or female — is attracted to an abusive partner. The ending of the play is an endorsement of S/M, and it made Sue very happy. Lola Starr realizes she doesn't need to get beat up when she can be abused in a controlled, fun environment. It sure was a wacky piece. Our administrator, Simone Georges, had arranged for us to premiere the play at the Edmonton Fringe. Feeling very vulnerable after my breakdown, I was glad to get away from the Toronto critics for a while. The Edmonton opening was a great idea. We had lots of fun packing Leslie Frankish's ingenious set and costumes onto the plane. She had made everything to fit into suitcases. All we needed at our Edmonton venue was an old couch. My main costume was my white fur coat (with real foxtail trim!). Leslie borrowed a dog costume for "Eat me" (Lola's faithful dog) from some old production of Peter Pan. And Simone was like our den mother. The play got rave reviews in Edmonton, where they perhaps ignored its

149

radical political undertones. They saw it as a showbiz sendup. Since the piece was funny, they laughed. They hummed the tunes. Sure, they knew they were watching a drag queen, but they figured that was just part of the fun. Toronto, however, was a different story. Ray Conlogue wrote one of the most flattering and insulting reviews I've ever received. It was right up there with Robert Crew's review of The Dressing Gown. Damned, in this case, with huge praise. The opening paragraph was the biggest rave we'd ever received for any play at Buddies. For the next ten years, in fact, we used it in promotional material for the company. It read: "Do you want to know what theatre is like when it's in tune with its audience, when there is a palpable excitement and a shared, passionate understanding of the issues at stake, when electricity zipzaps between performers and viewers like domesticated lightning? You do? Then hustle down." But then, two paragraphs later, Conlogue says, "There is only one caveat: if you're not gay, you probably won't understand a thing." Later in the review, Conlogue called me a genius. Then he, for all intents and purposes, revoked it: "It is a measure of Gilbert's theatrical genius (and I mean this phrase sincerely, provided it is not excerpted for advertisements) that this single joke makes it impossible not to dissolve into laughter." In both cases, Conlogue heaps enormous praise on my work, then adds a caveat that makes it all but meaningless. The reviews worked; Toronto audiences weren't really enthusiastic about Lola, and the play was never the hit it had been in Edmonton. Nobody, not even queers, wanted to go see a play that was incomprehensible to straight people. Conlogue suggested that the play was written in a foreign language: gay camp. Fortunately for the Edmonton audiences, they had been spared a reviewer's warning. They had a wonderful time. It was as if Conlogue's words were the blueprint for future reviews of all Fourplay productions. Over and over again we'd despair over write-ups that said, "I guess this is entertaining, for homosexuals? Or, even: "Lesbians must be so hungry for entertainment that they'll laugh at anything." In both cases, straight reviewers found themselves in a room full of guffawing queers, and in the middle of a peculiar dilemma. If they wrote a rave review, someone might think they were gay, or at least complicit with this "queer" nonsense. They were left with two choices. They could deny that the play was funny at all. (But that might look homophobic and would, after all, be a lie.) Or they could say that

the play was funny, but only to queers. There. Problem solved. The reviewer is not implicated, and te play ges a fairly accurate review. Unfortunately, these reviews keep audiences away in droves. Did reviewers somehow know the magic code tht would alienate our "people next door" gay audiences? We were in a horrible trap and, unfortunately, the arts councils were fooled by it, too. In 1988 we began receiving critical letters from the Canada Council. Ones from The Ontario Arts Council soon followed. (It's interesting that the criticism got more intense as we became more queer and more successful). The letters from the Canada Council were almost all the same until the day I left Buddies. They usually criticized my productions severely (no matter how many Doras I won!). Fourplay was singled out, too. Rhubarb! was praised, however, as was our commitment to new work. The subtext was clear: the councils were excited that we funded new work, but not as excited that we were so terribly, terribly queer. I was all too aware of this situation, and the criticism of my work really got under my skin. I had a huge argument with Kevin McCormick, who was our Canada Council grants officer at the time. He and I didn't get along. I remember rushing to meet him, clutching the Ray Conlogue review in one hand, and the nasty Canada Council letter in the other. "Here," I said, "it says that I'm a genius!" Kevin read the review very carefully, then responded, "Yes. But it says you're not allowed to quote it in ads!" He glowered at me viciously, fully confident that he had argued me into a corner. You might think that we /?Wpainted ourselves into a political corner. After all, we invented something called "Queerculture" — so isn't it hypocritical of us to criticize people for not understanding it? Isn't it, after all, our own fault? If we're calling ourselves another culture, don't we deserve to be "ghettoized"? But that argument is the same one the Nazis used against the Jews. "There they go, attending synagogue again, behaving different, acting pompous about their precious weird culture! Let's stuff'em in the oven." Or at least I think that's the way Hitler's argument goes. Any other cultural group in this politically correct age gets benevolent interest in their "difference." Queers get hostility. As you can see, a lot of my frustration was about hitting the glass ceiling. Bob Crew and Ray Conlogue were making it pretty clear that my work could never be truly popular because it was too gay. I think this fuelled my passion to become associated with experimental artists who were not officially gay or lesbian. Though I had consciously decided not to beg for

151

acceptance from the mainstream straight world, I subconsciously longed to satisfy that need with acceptance from the avant-garde fringe. Since my "recovery," I'd realized that there was more support for me and my aesthetic in the avant-garde theatre community than there was in the mainstream theatre community (or even the gay community). So, I'd been seeing a lot of avant-garde theatre at the Fringe Festivals, and started scouting it everywhere. I was looking for interesting young companies that Buddies could help. During this period Buddies introduced "Seed Shows" that were modelled after the Passe Muraille prototype. During Paul Thompson's tenure as artistic director there he used to give out small lump sums to fledgling companies all over the city, acting as a mini arts council. (Remember the one I received for Lana Turner Has Collapsed!?) We decided to do it, too. It was a great, cheap way for Buddies to foster opportunity without interference. Around this time, I was excited by four different small theatre companies, all of whom went on to incredible success. I had seen an Augusta Company production called Drinking at the Toronto Fringe. One of the members of the company was Daniel Brooks, who I remembered from Rhubarb! many years before and as a friend of Cynthia Grant's. The other two members were Don McKellar and Tracy Wright. I was immediately taken by the piece. The Augusta Company grew alongside Buddies for the next ten years. Their work was profound and very funny. Don McKellar was an affable and self-deprecating stage presence, as was Tracy Wright, his lover at the time. Tracy is a friend — and a strange, marvellous, yet seemingly unprepossessing actress. I've never been close to Don, but he strikes me as being as incredibly sweet and unpretentious as his movies. Brooks was something else — a veritable whirlwind of an actor, bubbling over with anger and power. He's also a brilliant director. Augusta's productions were filled with tiny, real heartbreaking moments, in the context of political rants and simple, untheatrical staging (usually only a chair, desk, and phone). Their sparse, dry, confrontational style betrayed the influence of the Wooster Group. I,think all three of these people were straight queers. That is, they were definitely heterosexual, but they were accepted as a part of Buddies because their work was so challenging and because they obviously had a few bones to pick with the patriarchy. When, years later, people tried to paint Buddies as an exclusively gay

company, I would always point to the Augusta Company as a major component that was not (technically speaking) queer. Most of the experimental artists who associated themselves with Buddies during this time weren't gay or lesbian. In fact, at times Buddies wasn't very gay at all (except in its politics). I was certainly more interested in talent than sexuality, although, of course, we didn't want anyone who was homophobic or who presented work that was homophobic connected with the theatre. A dear friend — and Buddies' publicist at the time — was Grant Ramsay. He suggested I see three York University students who called themselves Empress Productions — Diane Flacks, Victoria Ward, and Wendy White. Their wacky, post-feminist humour was developed at Rhubarb! for three years after that. We also got a script for Rhubarb! from Diane Cave called Act of War; Diane was later to team up with Nadia Ross to present their scathing political theatre of images at three other Rhubarbls. And finally, since my days with Christopher Newton I had been perpetually fascinated with Hillar Liitoja, and the Seed program gave me an opportunity to support his work. Buddies became a patron saint for all these little companies, and others, too. We were giving young artists a helping hand, and in some cases, giving them the first grant of their career. One of my most ambitious acting endeavours involved an association around this time with Hillar Liitoja's DNA Theatre. After completing the run of Lola Starr, I (gladly) stepped out of a dress for a while and accepted an offer to act in Liitoja's Hamlet. It was a Buddies Seed Show. He asked me to play Claudius. It was a very strange production. Hillar, under the influence of Robert Wilson and Richard Foreman (with whom he had apprenticed in New York City), insisted that the production be eight hours long. He proudly announced this at our first rehearsal. "It will be eight hours long," he barked, "and I'm cutting the play! Significantly!" At first it was beyond my comprehension. How could anyone cut a four-hour play significantly and have itve it turn out eight hours long? The math just didn't work. But Hillar's work defies conventional mathematics. I think Hillar is the most talented director I've ever worked with. He's a genius. (I mean this sincerely, provided it is not excerpted for advertisements — only kidding!) The problem is that Hillar also acts like a genius. He is

153

almost a cartoon caricature of a pretentious, pompous avant-garde director. Because of this, a lot of people think he's a fake. But he's not. He's a very deep and humane person. And he's tapped into the collective unconscious. Well, let's put it this way: if there is a collective unconscious, then Hillar's got a direct line to it. His images are absolutely striking and moving, and surprising. The important word is surprising. They're not images you have seen before, anywhere. Full of violence and sex, but without the exploitation that characterizes mainstream film. Devoid of sexism and homophobia. Not politically correct. Searing and disturbing. I'm convinced that Hillar consciously uses the principles of sado/masochistic sex in his directing. The principle behind S/M is that people are naturally power-oriented beings, and that sexual play is a method of venting those power plays without causing real destruction. Hillar's plays are all about power. Of course, the most powerful person in any of Hillar's productions is always Hillar himself. Often, Hillar will sit outside the door of the theatre and decide who should be let in. Sometimes, during a performance, Hillar will visibly conduct. A lot of people hate this, and consider him a pretentious prat. Sue hated Hillar's productions. I think it's because she's a "dom." (This shows how efficient our job separations were; Sue was the president of the company but she would never think of criticizing my artistic choices.) In fact, I noticed that dominant personalities always resist Hillar's aesthetic. He insists on controlling performances with his own exacting infuriating presence — and that makes his plays feel like a cult ritual, and makes people suspicious of him. I think people should be scared of Hillar. It means he's creating art that makes a difference. The power dynamics of Hillar productions also involve time, seating, and sound. His work is often rigidly timed, and there are extensive periods of inactivity/boredom. Insisting on an eight-hour Hamlet was a kind of domination tactic — the audience was forced to submit to his will. The seating for Hillar's productions, too, is always strange (I've emulated it in my own productions). Often people end up staring at other audience members, or plopped down right in the middle of the action. For Hamlet the audience was dotted around the room, and they were permitted to move during the show to get a better seat (or to leave and return at any time). Finally, Hillar's productions are characterized by extended silences that are broken by periods of

deafening noise (Hillar is partially deaf, and he likes the music loud because quite often he can't hear it otherwise). The blasts usually come as classical motifs from obscure symphonies or operas. For Hamlet he made an uncharacteristic choice, a recognizable light classical favourite for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's dance (Ken McDougall and Daniel Maclvor played the pair) — an oft-repeated excerpt from Strauss's Die Fledermaus. How in heaven's name did Hillar manage to cut the play and yet extend it to eight hours? Well, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's dance, for example, was repeated at least three times each night and took 20 minutes to perform each time. The actor playing Hamlet could ask for the dance over and over — the number of requests depended only on his mood. The dance was fabulous, violent, and funny. But some nights, when Hamlet asked for the dance (shouting "AGAIN!") for the fourth time, I could hear audience members groan. And I could hear Hillar cackle with joy. I was playing Gertrude's young husband. We were asked to perform an extended love scene during the prologue of the show. The actor playing Gertrude was a small, older woman, with the fat worried face of a European peasant, a thick body, and heavy hands. I could handle the scene even though she was not at all my type — I was a professional, and after all, we were wearing nightclothes during the simulated sex. Besides, we were almost friends; I had cast her in Theatrelife a couple of years before. But we had a terrible row one night after the show. Oh God, it was awful. This woman, apparently, had endured an excruciating childhood — both of her parents were killed in the Holocaust. But that's still no excuse for what she did to me. I don't think I can ever forgive her. Every night she used to drive some of the actors home. As soon as we got into the car, she'd start complaining. I couldn't understand why she agreed to drive us home if it was all such a trial. But night after night she drove us, and played the martyr. One evening, Eddie Roy and some other friends came to see the play. After the show, when she asked me if I wanted a ride, I declined, saying that I was going to go out for a drink with my friends. Well, suddenly, my usually just cranky and martyred Gertrude turned into a spitting viper. "Friends?" she hissed. "You don't have any friends! These people aren't your friends. They're your sucks — your little ass-licking theatre toadies. You like to fool yourself that these people are really fond of you, but they just want

1S5

to get somewhere! You don't have any friends and you never will." After her little tirade I was in a state of shock. Speechless, for once. When I came to my senses, I was deeply, deeply hurt. Did she know that I'd just spent the last year recovering from social paranoia? She had accurately described my nightmares about my theatre friends. I didn't remember talking about this particular primal neurosis in the dressing room, but somehow she knew. She sure was perceptive, I'll give her that. One shot — right to the jugular. Some people are experts at lethal cruelty. Needless to say, I didn't ride home with her ever again. I confided in some friends about her little speech (not theatre friends, how could I tell them?). Nobody could explain her actions. Someone suggested that maybe she had fallen in love with me (after all, we did have faux sex every night during the play) and was jealous. I was in a very difficult situation. I had to continue pretending to be her passionate consort — it was so difficult. I spent a few days concocting my revenge. I decided on something that would help me to endure our scenes in bed and at the same time hurt her deeply. I know this all sounds horrible, but I was upset, and in a pickle that was quickly turning to stew. So, one night, the moment before we went onstage, I whirled around and whispered, "Could you do me a huge favour? Could you not put your tongue in rny mouth when we kiss? It's very unprofessional and on top of that, it disgusts me. It's disgusted me from the very first time you did it. I feel violated by it. So, could you please stop doing that? Thanks so much." Well, her wrinkled face just fell like an old German cake. I really don't like telling that story, but it's all true. The penultimate moment of Hamlet was the entrance of the mad Ophelia. Hillar didn't let the actors see the scene until two days before we opened, and the suspense was real. I only had two lines so I knew that I'd have no trouble responding on opening night, whatever the situation. But I wasn't at all prepared for her appearance, which was Hillar's plan. On opening night, I was almost as shocked as the audience. Kirsten Johnson played Ophelia. Kirsten is a very intelligent and strangely beautiful girl. Her strawberry-blonde hair, piercing eyes, and swaying sexual walk are a complete turn-on for most straight men and many lesbians. At the time she was a pale, slender, precocious teenager. Hillar worked with her alone in the kitchen, and no one was allowed to interrupt

them. It was all very mysterious. We wondered what they were doing in there. It turns out, most of the time they were arguing. Hillar wanted the mad Ophelia to stuff vegetables up her vagina. Her vagina! The idea, besides being crazy, was impractical and unsafe. Imagine what kind of diseases you could get doing that! Well, of course Kirsten refused. This was typical of Millar's technique as a director: ask for the stars, and you might get the moon. So what Kirsten agreed to do, finally, was to smear the vegetables all over her body. It was one of the most bizarre moments I have ever experienced in theatre. Here were Gertrude and Claudius staring at a daughter who was not just cute-flowers-in-her-hair mad, but clearly, terrifyingly, disgustingly bonkers. I loved it. It turned me against Canada's Stratford Festival for life. I dare them, I just dare them to someday hire Hillar to do a real Hamlet, where Ophelia is not just cute crazy. I mean you just have to feel really sa.dd and horrified when she throws herself in that river, not just all warm and fuzzy and "moved." The most frightening moment in Hamlet was when Hillar brought in a rock band to be terrorists at the end of the play. BUNCHOFFUCKINGGOOFS were supposed to shoot the whole cast, including the children (there were several kids and young teenagers in the play). The Goofs, as we called them, were quite a crowd. They looked like a bunch of stoned punks and street kids, and they acted that way, too. Hillar thought they would be really scary. And they were. You see, we didn't have an Equity stage manager on the production and the Goofs brought all these starter pistols late one night for a rehearsal. There was some concern on the part of the cast, because these guys didn't seem too responsible. We didn't want to say that, of course, because we didn't want to make them mad. You wouldn't want to make the Goofs mad. Anyway, Andrew Scorer, who was playing Hamlet, challenged Hillar because he didn't think we were following the proper safety rules for rehearsing with guns. And hearing all this talk, one of the kid actors starting crying, "I don't want to get shot! I don't want to die." Which made us all realize the seriousness of the situation. A baleful silence floated in the air. We all looked at each other, and Hillar marched off into his little director's room to think. He cancelled the Goofs and the chilling final moment. I really respected Hillar for that. He has huge theatrical ambitions, but he's willing to make practical compromises, too. His compromises are better than most people's dreams.

1S7

After Hamlet and our annual Rhubarb!, it was time for the inaugural Queerculture Festival. The Toronto Star did a huge story about it, and the entertainment section had a big pink triangle on the cover. We staged many new events — Holly Cole and David Ramsden played together to inaugurate a musical series at the Rivoli, for instance. There were also art exhibits all around town, and the Fourplay Festival itself was back up to scratch. We presented the premier of Audrey Butler's second play, Black Friday, directed by Bryden MacDonalcl, as well as Where Is Kabuki?\>y Don Druick, and the premier of a new musical, Lesbians Who Wear Lipstick, by Marcy Rogers. Audrey and Don's plays were very successful and went on to receive Governor General's Award nominations. The success of Queerculture was a much needed shot in the arm for the Fourplay audiences. In the summer of 1989 we also switched general managers. I enjoyed working with Simone Georges — she was cheerful, worked well with people, and she managed to deal with the financial side of things for a while — but Sue Golding wasn't terribly pleased with her. This time marked the beginning of the financial troubles that would burgeon when Buddies moved into the new theatre on Alexander. It started with us not really having enough money to stage spring productions; I withdrew spring productions from the Buddies season after Theatrelife in order to make way for the Fourplay and Rhubarb! Festivals. But even with the cancellation of my spring show, it was still difficult to mount anything at that time of year. We would always run out of money in the spring — clearly the result of bad planning because we received our grants the summer before — and the scramble for cash would always be frantic. Sue blamed Simone for the bad planning — and she thought that Simone was "lesbianphobic." She was right. Simone was the type of straight woman who loved gay men, but wasn't completely comfortable around lesbians. It's typical, actually. Straight men think lesbians are cool because they're not threatened sexually by them. Straight women often feel the same way about gay men for the same reasons. Conveniently, Simone decided to leave Buddies about this time. And we asked Tim Jones, who was then a board member, to be the new general manager. I was very excited about the idea, but had one reservation. Tim had been a good friend when I was going through my nervous breakdown. I wasn't

quite clear how he could keep being a good friend if he was now going to be my number-one employee. We could afford a publicist (Dan Wardock at first, then Grant Ramsay), but that was it. The general manager was, therefore, a pretty important part of the company. And in any theatre, the relationship between the general manager and the artistic director is fraught with tension because the manager holds the purse strings. At any point, the grand dreams of the artistic director can be foiled — all the general manager has to say is "Sorry, not enough money!" I'd never really had this problem before, because Sue always defended my right to do my work in the company that I created. But I knew that if money was going to be available for spring productions, the purse strings would have to be pulled tighter. I anticipated that the financial tension would put stress on my relationship with Tim. Remembering that my friendship with Chris Bye had probably hurt our professional dealings, I reluctantly said goodbye to an intimate friend and hello to a colleague. We were always cordial with each other (except during our worst fights!), but something had changed. After my breakdown, I tried to keep my closest friends outside the company. Theatre people were fun, but my professional relationships with them always got in the way. That's why more and more of my social life revolved around 57 Homewood, and, specifically, the fabulous 57 Homewood parties. Since the house was so huge and everyone living there had so many friends, the parties had become kind of notorious. I still have people coming up to me and saying, "I met you at that Homewood party, don't you remember?" I usually say I was so drunk at those parties that I'm lucky I remember my own name. I didn't smoke, but I still drank. Although the parties were not mine (the whole house organized them), I always acted the part of host (usually hostess). Sue was always enthusiastically involved, even after she moved out and found her own apartment (which was soon after she became board president). There was a Homewood "spirit" developing, and Bob, Sue, and I all felt like members no matter where we were living. What was happening to me was fascinating; the cocoons of drag and Queerculture weren't enough to make me feel safe from the outside world. I also had to try and create my own queer society. Homewood depended on me to provide the raucous, sexual tone for our house events. Anyway, I probably had forgotten my name at those parties — I was usually dressed as Jane. I remember on one wild night leading a cute boy who

159

was supposed to be my little dog around on a leash. I think he did some sort of trick, but I can't even remember what it was! One of the neatest things about these parties were the fact that they were very mixed: dykes/fags, straight/gay, whites and people of colour. It was an eclectic group, with one thing in common: the people were all sexual. On the top floor of the house there was an attic bedroom that led out to a huge deck. We would keep that room pitch black and leave a lot of sex toys (dildos, tit clamps — Sue was a tit clamp expert!) and condoms around. Of course, people would wander up to the room and out onto the deck to have sex. It was a very civilized way to hold a party — very European. In Europe, all the gay bars have dark rooms where you can make out. I mean, do you want to stand around all night at a party and talk? Don't you want to do the nasty, and then go back downstairs for a little intellectual chitchat? Just for a break? And since you're probably going to be talking about sex at the party anyway, isn't it more convenient if you've just had it? One night I was parading around one of the Homewood house parties in drag, and I decided I'd go up and see how our little sex room was doing. I usually didn't have much sex at our Homewood parties because I was far too busy being a hostess. Being hostess is a big responsibility, as I'm sure your mom will tell you. It was very late when I finally wandered upstairs. There were two or three people in the bed, making out. And there was this one boy. He was very beautiful. His name was Shaun. Anyway, Shaun was making out with somebody, but when he saw me he suddenly got really assertive. He ordered me to take off my dress. And my shoes. And my nails. I distinctly remember Shaun watching me, naked, rip off one nail after another and drop them beside the bed. Then I climbed in and had fun. Eventually, the other people in the bed decided to leave (most sexual people have very good manners and they instinctively know when it's polite to go). We fell into a drunken sleep in each other's arms and woke up together the next morning. I was sure to get his number. That beautiful boy was Shaun O'Mara. He was a spectacle to behold — 27, tall and slender, with a classically chiselled face and curly hair. His body was perfect. He had a deep voice and easygoing personality. Sometimes he could be mean and butch, and other times he would get all girly.

We didn't get together again for a while. We just kept meeting at the strangest places — usually orgies. At an orgy a couple of months later, while we were making out, Shaun said to me, "Hey, it would be great to be able to do this more regularly!" Well, that was enough for me. I started calling him. I left endless complex love poems on his machine, and this obviously made an impression. We finally had a date (it was at Sue's apartment — she left all sorts of sexual gear out for us, but made me promise to clean the dildos). In the fall I decided to move out of the Homewood place. It was another important move. Part of me associated the house with my nervous breakdown. By the time I left, Sue had already moved out, so there was just my friend Grant, Bob, and myself. Even the parties had gotten out of hand. In the end, they started to turn into a kind of nightclub. Really. Strangers would be at the party — people nobody knew. The evenings were so infamous thatat people were coming from Buffalo. In the end we found graffiti on the walls: somebody thought our crazy house was a bar. But my move had wider implications. I was looking for another place to call home. Since leaving the Theatre Centre, Buddies too had become homeless, nomadic. One day our plays were at an old theatre on Bloor Street, the next day at the Bathurst Street United Church. The funding for Fourplay had been threatened. My recent breakdown was still very fresh in my memory. It was an unstable time. The only thing I had learned in therapy was that I needed a partner. So the real reason I moved out was Shaun. Maybe he was sending me ESP messages or something, but 1 had the feeling that if I moved out of Homewood I might get a boyfriend. I figured that too many of my emotional needs were being taken care of by a gay group house, by the cocoon of the queer society I was helping to create. I wanted to put myself into a situation where I'd be more emotionally needy. Where I'd actually need a man. I wanted to make myself available. Well, as I say, Shaun must have been reading my mind. He offered to help me move in and, lo and behold, pretty well moved in with me. I'd found a little apartment at Yonge and Wellesley on the third floor above a porn shop. It was perfect for me; a big open space with a skylight and a little room at the back where I could write and go out on the roof. I very clearly remember Shaun placing himself on the bed in my new space with a finality that said, "I'm your boyfriend now."

161

The day after my move, he wouldn't let me go to Buddies. He said I had to stay home with him. That was just the kind of discipline I was looking for. Someone to force me to "get a life." And that was literally what was happening. Shaun is a very talented artist. In some ways, he's like David Pond — he picks up junk and makes inspired artwork with it. He had just returned from travelling in London, England, when I met him. He had been a hooker. In England he was a dominant top. He said that there was lots of call for it there. He could make a great deal of money slapping old guys around, and he seemed to enjoy it. Our relationship shocked my mother. She phoned me one day and said, "Sky, I've got some skipping rope here. I know you're going to the gym, and I don't really need it. Do you want it?" I was about to say no but Shaun made me put my hand over the phone. "Tell her we need it." He said. "We need it to tie you up." I told him I wouldn't say that. But Shaun was very persuasive. So I told my mother we needed the rope to tie me up. My mother is very open-minded, but I think we'd hit her limit. She said, "I'm certainly not going to give you the rope for that!" My mother wasn't too fond of Shaun after that. But I was happy as a clam. He was my beautiful dream boy — literally what the doctor ordered. He'd pick up the phone at my place before I could get to it. "No," he'd say to Tim, "Sky is too busy to come to work today. Sorry." Our relationship lasted for about a year and a half. My fall play in 1989 was The Whore's Revenge (kind of appropriate, considering the circumstances of my life, don't you think?). It's a very strange piece, a kind of Victorian melodrama. I starred again, this time as a repressive doctor. Steve Cumyn and Deborah Kirshenbaum also returned, and Eddie Roy directed, It was like the Lola Starr company had returned for another bow. But the play was very different. The Whore's Revenge is a piece I still feel oddly about. Heavily influenced by (you guessed it) Sue, it was my first completely feminist play. It's also a classic "ejaculation" — after the charm factory of Lola Starr, I didn't want to rest on my laurels and produce another comedy. My ejaculatory plays, like The Whore's Revenge (after 1988 they alternated with the crowd-pleasers), openly challenged audiences; there was less sugar-coating on the radical pill. To me they felt like honest, unadorned, spunky spurts of theatrical daring, and they balanced the crowd-pleasers that the charm factory requires.

(Besides, people in Hdmonton had laughed so hard that they completely missed the point of Lola.} The plot of The Whore's Revenge concerns a lower-class Victorian girl with a huge clitoris. And it's a drama. Hmmm. I can honestly say that 1 don't know whether 1 he Whore's Revenge is a good play or not, but we had the strangest luck with it. First of all, the critics hated it and absolutely no one came — we even had to cancel performances. I hadn't felt so out of touch with the gay community since Lacey and Radiguet. One of the problems, I think, was that the subject matter was so incredibly offensive to people that no one could write about the details of the play in a review, much less tell their friends. But, strangely enough, the play received a Dora Award for Best Play, Small Theatres category. 1 was shocked. I heard that there were a lot of women on the jury. Which makes a lot of sense. 1 mean you just don't write about the clitoris. In my play, the woman's clitoris was so big that she could actually fuck a man and bring him a lot of pleasure. (I know. It's as odd for me to tell you about this play as it must be for you to read about it!) The reason 1 think the clitoris is such a revolutionary and shocking part of the body is that its one and only use is pleasure. 1 mean, the penis is used for peeing, and the vagina for giving birth. But the vagina doesn't have as much sensation as the clit, which is only for pleasure. What does it say about us as a culture that we find the clit so incredibly threatening? And there are a couple of other weird things about my luck with The Whore's Revenge. It was my first play to win a Dora, and it was also the first straight play 1 wrote and directed for Buddies. There were no gay characters in it at all. Isn't that ironic? I dont think I'm being paranoid here. Look at the preceding four years. I directed The Dressing Gown, Drag Queens on Trial, Drag Queens in Outer Space, Theatrelife, The Postman Rings Once, and Lola Starr. All of these plays were high-profile sellouts with great reviews — all very, very gay, with drag queens jumping around and talking about blowjobs. Two of them were hits out west as well as in Toronto. Then I write a very odd little thing, a straight, Victorian, feminist melodrama with no gay characters, a play that no one came to see and everyone seemed to hate, and I get the Dora. Go figure. But something even more ironic happened. The same winter that I produced my first feminist play, inspired by my closest lesbian friend (who

163

happened to be president of the company), there was a lesbian uprising at Buddies. Yes, a lesbian revolt. It all started with the creation of Strange Sisters, a benefit designed to raise money for the lesbian productions at Buddies, founded by myself, Sue Golding, Edward Roy, Tim Jones, Audrey Butler, Veronica Macdonald, and Tannis Atkinson. I remember all of us sitting around the table at the Annex Theatre (after Portland Street, Buddies had offices at the Bathurst Street Centre for Peace and Justice) creating what would became an annual benefit performance at Buddies for many years to come. During the 1989-1990 season, Sue had to leave town for some reason (I can't remember why, exactly, but it meant seeing her parents in Virginia). While she was gone, a group of lesbians, headed by Audrey Butler, created what they called a Lesbian Caucus at Buddies. Audrey has always been quite a character. Squat and laconic, she rarely talks and occasionally enjoys growing a beard. She resembles less a lesbian playwright than a truck driver. 1 never really got to know her (she was Bryden MacDonald's friend), but she seemed nice enough. Her rhythm was so slow that — well, she and 1 having tea was like a bumblebee and a tortoise going for a walk. Her energy is so low its amazing that she even makes it out of bedm the morning. Yet the whole Lesbian Caucus thing was very much Audrey's idea. When Sue returned, she was very concerned. "A lesbian caucus?" She was upset. "Why would they form a caucus?" "Well," I said, very na'i've to the way political groups work, "they just wanted to form this group of happy lesbians, I guess." "Happy lesbians?" Sue said. "Are you kidding? Why did you let them form a caucus?" (She obviously hated that word). "You only form a caucus when you're dissatisfied — when you have a beef. This is very bad. We can't have a lesbian caucus here at Buddies. That implies that the dykes are being oppressed by the fags. Don't you see the problem? I'm the president of this company, and that caucus makes me invisible!" I didn't quite understand what she was saying. "If they need to form a caucus, then that means they're suggesting that they have no power. But I'm a lesbian and I'm the president of the company. This is typical lefty politics. You lorm a caucus, and then you try and take over the organization. I guarantee it. That's what's going to happen. We have to dismantle the group."

Of course we didn't. I honestly didn't think it was a big deal. Boy, was I wrong. A little later, Audrey and her caucus got it into their heads that they invented Strange Sisters — completely on their own. The males present at that meeting were suddenly not part of the history of the project. Neither was Sue. And they decided that Strange Sisters was their event, and that they were going to go out on their own and present Strange Sisters without Buddies. You see, from the beginning Sue had warned me about essentialism, and about man-hating dykes. "They're everywhere," she said. Not that Sue and I didn't think there were woman-hating fags, too. Our culture is filled with hate, full of divisions along gender lines, but because women have more to fear from men than men have to fear from women (physical violence, for one thing), there are a lot of politicized dykes who hate men. One of Sue's early policy rules was that there would be no "women only" events at Buddies. No "women only," no "men only," no "black only," no "queer only." No essentialist events. We would do our best to create safe spaces for everyone without separating genders, races, or sexualities. Sue was adamant about this. "I've seen women do this before. It starts small and then it gets big. The problem is that they hate men. That's not right." So, we had to have a big meeting with the Strange Sisters rebel group and explain to them that Strange Sisters was a Buddies invention, and that it would remain a Buddies fundraising event. They couldn't just stealit. Audrey started complaining then about the fact that I got so much money for my productions. More than she got for hers. "Why shouldn't I get as much money for Black Friday as Sky gets for The Whore's Revenge:1" she asked. "Because it's Sky's company," said Sue. "He started it. He works very hard for it. What have you done besides complain?" I don't know what I would have done without Sue. I'm very easily intimidated, and if Sue had not been there I probably would have just given up and said, "Go ahead Audrey, you run the company. I give up." Sue was my saviour at Buddies in Bad Times. That season was definitely the year for lesbian melodrama, as Sue liked to call it. For our annual Fourplay, we brought together some very interesting productions. One was The Saints and the Apostles, written by Ray Storey and directed by Edward Roy. A provocative new play by Larry Fineberg starring the wonderful Wendy Thatcher was less of a success with audiences. For

165

the second time Fourplay also produced Matey Rogers' piece. She was an acerbic up-and-coming writer who was experimenting with reinventing lesbian camp. And, on Tim Jones' suggestion, we encouraged the great dyke punk band The Nancy Sinatras to work on a script about Nancy Sinatra and her father Frank. This was one of Tim's best ideas. Beverly Bratty and her lover, Suzy Richter, were very talented performers. Their work was full of wit and the right kind of queer politics — pro-sexual but anti-patriarchal. In Movin with Nancy, Nancy Sinatra confronts her ne'er-do-well but charming father about his possible abuse. And she sings a lot of great songs, too. The only problem with the Nancy Sinatras was that they had very little actual theatre experience. But we thought we could use the Fourplay situation to teach them more about drama because they had a huge amount of potential and lots of writing and performance experience. Veronica Macdonald was one of the stage managers for that Fourplay, as was Gwen Bardeman. Remember Gwen? She was that punk dyke that I had met a few years earlier with David Pond. She's as squat and tough as Audrey Butler, but, unlike Audrey, she's a ball of energy. She's as quiet as Audrey, too, and when she does speak she's quick, articulate, and to the point. Gwen is a professional stage manager, and very capable. In fact, it was her performance at this Fourplay that convinced us that she would make a great permanent stage manager for Buddies. Also, she's a very cool chick — very good at her job, smart, and not a man-hater (just a woman-lover). On opening night, Beverly Bratty had a disagreement with Veronica Macdonald. The audience was seated in neat little rows in the tiny backspace at Theatre Passe Muraille, and it was packed, with everyone excited to see The Nancy Sinatras in a new play. Well, the play wouldn't start, and then it wouldn't start some more. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, Veronica Macdonald came stomping up the stairs and threw her stage managers book down in front of my chair and said, "Fuck this shit. I give up." And marched off. In full view of the critics. Luckily, Gwen Bartleman and Edward Roy were heroic and ran the show without her. But when Fourplay was over we had to figure out what to do about Veronica. Should we fire her? According to the standards of theatre professionalism, what she had done was thoroughly wrong. And it's not as if it hadn't made a difference, or as if no one had witnessed the outburst. That

was the problem. It wasn't that Veronica had a fight with Beverly, it's that she had broken a cardinal stage manager's rule by getting angry in front of the audience. The critics actually wrote about her little tantrum in the papers the next day, and it made Fourplay and the Nancys look very bad. Sue, Tim, and I and the rest of the board had to meet and discuss it. We decided to fire her. But it was really Sue who insisted, and it was Sue who ultimately gave Veronica the news. She reasoned, "The big problem with women and their work is professionalism. Men hold back women from getting professional status. We don't get the salaries or the opportunities. But how do you get to be a professional? By living up to professional standards. We have to hold Veronica to that standard, because we're a professional theatre company." There was resistance from the Strange Sisters crowd, but Sue stuck to her guns. Veronica has since developed into a fine, professional stage manager, and I think it has a lot to do with Sue. A high point of the Queerculture festival that year was Jane Goes to Court. The event has an interesting history. Sometime in the fall of 1989 I was on my way to a theatre benefit in a cab, dressed as Jane. As the cab I was riding in passed through the Queen and Ossington area, it was stopped by the police. They were very rude to me and searched my purse and my "person." I was in a notorious area of town and I think they thought I was a transsexual, drug-addicted hooker. A chick with a dick. When they couldn't find any drugs on me, they finally gave me a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt. I felt very unnerved by the experience. And then I got angry. It sure seemed like harassment. I don't take a lot of cabs in drag, but what if I were a hooker and I did go around in drag all the time? Would I have to put up with this type of harassment? There was no reason to stop our cab at all. There was no evidence of anything illegal. The police simply didn't like the looks of me. I'm certainly not convinced that the Toronto police don't still harass drag queens, hookers, and street people. One of the big problems is that the cops are all basically straight male hicks from Northern Ontario or the Toronto suburbs. But let's not kid ourselves. We live in a very conservative society that tends to treat those who are poor and different and sexual as pariahs. I was experiencing the reality of the fantasy I had created in Drag Queens on Trial Well, I told the story of my ticket to Tim Jones. And then I mentioned the date of my trial and Tim noticed that it was scheduled during Queer-

167

culture 1990. Tim suggested that I go to court in drag and that we make it a Queer-culture event. This sort of suggestion is what made him a great general manager for Buddies. I didn't have just Sue and Ed to support me; there was Tim as well. Tim is so politically aware, and so much a part of the gay and theatre communities that he's always had an instinctual idea of what's the right thing to do politically. I was excited by his idea, but initially reluctant to commit. It was scary. We were dealing with the law. I know it was just a traffic ticket, but I'm a nice white boy who's never had a record, and the whole thing scared me. I called a lawyer friend who told me that the worst thing that could happen would be that I would be held in contempt for coming to court in drag, but this was highly unlikely. How would the judge know that I didn't dress in drag all the time? There are certainly drag queen hookers who come to court in drag. So the danger of incarceration was small. Still, I made my friends promise to bail me out. As we got closer to the court date, I got more and more excited. Some other engagement meant that Shaun, unfortunately, was unable to escort me. So I got my friend Corey Reay to be my date — Jane just had to have a handsome swain on her arm. I wore a gold lame mini that my sister had made for me. (My sister is a fabulous costume designer who now owns her own mascot company in Toronto, Lydia Mason Designs.) Unfortunately, my hair looked like a bit of a rat's nest, but with sunglasses and my Lola Starr fur with the foxtail trim, I managed to pull it all off with a soup£on of glamour. Larry Fineberg and Wendy Thatcher were really sweet. Larry decided to rent a limousine and chauffeur me to the courthouse. Wendy brought her video camera and taped my transformation from big, burly artistic director to accused femme fatale. I still have the tape, and it's quite funny. While I dressed, Wendy perused my apartment with the camera, and every time she spied a photo of a man with a large penis (and there are a few), she'd say, "Wow, what the hell is that?" and her camera would pause lovingly on his equipment. She and Michael Ball must have a fun sex life. Anyway, the three of us piled into the limo with my date and Tim Jones. Larry had thoughtfully supplied champagne, and the limo was, happily, equipped with a video machine. We slipped in a porn movie. By the time we got to the court as quite drunk and horny — which is a great way to prepare for a trial. ed of whatever tiny inhibitions I'd ever had, I popped out

of the top of the limo in front of Old City Hall and waved to my adoring fans. Then I climbed the many steps to the courtroom. I think the judge was impressed with the crowd; there must have been at least 50 people there. And they were clearly freaks. There was little Tim, his tall boyfriend Taylor, and all their queer friends who had embraced the skinhead aesthetic. Whatever hair they had was brightly dyed, and most were resplendent in knee-high Doc Martens, black T-shirts, and piercings. The trial went very well. An officer testified, but I'm quite sure that he wasn't the cop who frisked and ticketed me. When I had a chance to cross-examine him I tripped him up on a couple of fine points. Then, when it came time for me to tell my story, I did so with dignity. The judge was impressed. I got off on a technicality. When I was talking about the ticket, the judge asked me, "Where did you get this cab?" "What do you mean?" "I mean, how did you find yourself in this cab?" I didn't really know what he was talking about, but I answered him clearly and honestly. "Why, I hailed it, on the street." "You hailed the cab?" asked the judge, clearly confused. "Yes, of course, how else would you get a cab?" "You mean it wasn't your car? You didn't own it?" "No," I said, "it was a cab I hired to take me to my destination." I may have flashed a bit of "gam" at the judge at that point, remembering Lucille Ball's tactics when she was on trial for wrecking Ethel and Fred's television, and Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago. No, I wasn't above using carnal mediods to save myself from hard time. After all, those rough, tough boys at the Don Jail would have made mincemeat of dainty Jane! Anyway, it turns out that the judge had been under the misconception that the cab was my own car. Or that I had been driving in a friend's cab. You see, it isn't against the law to go without a seatbelt in a cab that you have hired. So [ clearly had not been breaking the law. When the judge figured out that I was a (somewhat) ordinary passenger in an ordinary cab, he let me off. He even said that I was a "reasonable person." Everyone clapped and we went off and had more champagne at an oyster bar across the street. It really was a great event, and I think that those who saw it will never forget it. The Toronto Sun snapped my picture, and the next

169

day there was a great little article saying, "Sky Gilbert, 6-foot, hairy-chested, no-pound drag queen, gets off!" And I did. Well, if you think our Queerculture Festival that year was full of melodrama (of both the lesbian and courtroom kind), you should have seen Rhubarb! If for no other reason, Rhubarb! 1990 was historic for its lineup. I had been scouring the ranks of the avant-garde for up-and-coming talent, and a shortlist of artists that year is astounding: Death Waits, Diane Cave, Hillar Liitoja, Elliott Hayes, Greg Kramer, Daniel Brooks, Guillermo Verdecchia, Diane Flacks, Wendy White, Victoria Ward, Atom Egoyan, Kim Renders, David Craig, Peter Lynch, Edward Roy, Paul Bettis, and Glenn Christie (to name a few). Rhubarb! ran for three weeks and it proved to be very controversial. One week especially. Elliott Hayes had written a piece called Strip, a monologue by a gay male stripper. It was followed by A Brood of Doves, a piece by a ly-year-old high-school student named Death Waits. Later in the program came Hillar Liitoja and DNA Theatre's creation The Panel. I think it may have been the peculiar and eclectic mix of plays that caused some of the trouble, so I will describe them. Strip and The Panel both involved audience participation. That's where the similarity ended. As the boy strips in Strip, the audience is encouraged to behave the way a rowdy audience in a strip club might, and yell at the performers. The Panel was an incredibly radical piece, one of my favourite Rhubarb! plays of all time. It was divided into sections; Hillar was present as a timer, and he would press a very annoying buzzer to signal that various sections of the piece were finished. The body of The Panel involved each performer ad libbing his or her reactions to certain questions about AIDS. At the end of each of the sections, the audience was allowed to contribute. It got very rowdy. The play presented many radical ideas about AIDS, including those by Peter Duesberg who believes diat HIV is not the cause. The audience was at times very angry — the AIDS epidemic in Toronto was at its height in 1990. Then came Brood of Doves, Death Waits' first venture into theatre. Death Waits now goes by the name Jacob Wren. Neither is his real name. Death, being a teenager, lived with his parents during Rhubarb! At first it seemed odd, calling him on the phone. "Is Death there?" I'd ask. "Just a minute," his cheery mom would say, "I'll get him." "Hello, Death?" I'd say. "Yes, it's me," he'd say. But the more I thought about it, the more the idea of Death being

a ly-year-old boy began to ring true. I mean, it would certainly make sense to anyone who knows Pasolini's life story, for instance. Later, I wrote a play about this subject called In Which Pier Paolo Pasolini Sees His Own Death in the Face of a Boy. Anyway, calling a boy named Death on the phone was always a freaky experience. Death Waits is an enormously talented writer. I first met him in Hillar's Hamlet. I'll never forget it. For the last performance Hillar asked each of us to die at the end. And we had to choose our method of deaths. I chose to fuck myself to death, of course. Death chose to cut his hair. And he did. He was a pale boy with trusting eyes and beautiful long curly boy locks — until the last performance of Hamlet, when he cut it all off during the play. It made me cry. (I'm sure it made his cheery mother cry, too!) As Jacob Wren, Death has become an internationally renowned performance artist. Influenced by Hillar and Robert Wilson, his work is filled with brilliant images. His last production at Buddies featured three six-foot-long bags, which were gradually filled with water during the play and then gradually emptied at the end. Death's work, unlike Hillar's, is obviously personal: sometimes he just stands on stage and plays the violin or tells a story in that sweet deadpan way he has. Brood of Doves was his first professional production. It was directed by a woman named Orly Wasserzug. A woman. That's important. The play was very odd. It seemed to be a meditation on women and violence. I'm not sure if I agreed with Orly's interpretation of the piece, but I wanted to give Death a chance, and he didn't want to direct it himself at the time (later he decided that he enjoyed directing his own work). It's important to note that female characters were killed in this piece. It's also important to note that this Rhubarb! came hot on the heels of the Montreal Massacre, in which II women were murdered by a brutal misogynist. Images of violence against women were in everyone's minds. I don't know if Death and Orly were thinking about this or not. Anyway, one night a whole bunch of people from Tarragon and Factory came to see Rhubarb!, which was held (as it had been for 3 years) at the Annex Theatre. Urjo Kareda and Jackie Maxwell, the artistic directors of Tarragon Theatre and Factory Theatre respectively, were definitely there. I think Andy McKim, Urjo's assistant, was there, too. There was a whole row of them right in the middle near the front. Well, Brood of Doves came right after

171

Strip, and members of this theatre crowd were reacting quite vocally to Strip. I remember watching them, and thinking, "Wow, these guys are really trying to show how hip they are." They were shouting stuff like "Take it off" — which was absolutely appropriate. But then came Brood of Doves, a serious drama. The theatre types didn't seem to get it. They hooted and catcalled like they were still at a strip show. Of course, they were definitely theatre-savvy enough to know that a new play had begun, and that Death's piece was something serious. Their heckling almost ruined the play. If one of the characters said something like, "I'm going to shoot you!" they'd yell, "And why don't you shoot yourself while you're at it!" Had Brood of Doves been an audienceparticipation piece, there might have been some justification for them speaking out. But there was none in this case. They clearly hated Death's play, and, believing it was pretentious, simply made fun of it. I was furious. It wasn't fair of established theatre types like Jackie and Urjo to come to a small play festival by a small theatre (Buddies) and heckle new writers. What was most upsetting was that they had chosen to heckle a highschool kid's first work. These people were seasoned professionals, and it seemed unfair, even cruel. God, the number of times I've gone to horrible amateur productions and sat politely through the most awful drek. I just use Christopher Newton's frozen smile. He showed it to me once as the British way of doing things. If someone asks you what you think, you just put on the frozen smile and say, "Thank you very much. I have to leave early. Sorry." Something like that. That way you get out of it without hurting anyone's feelings. Even though I was angry, I was going to let things ride until I got a call from Daniel Brooks. He was very upset. "Did you see what happened with those Tarragon types the other night?" I told him that I did. "Well, aren't you going to do something about it?" "Like what?" I asked. "I think you should call up Urjo and Jackie, and tell them that you thought their behaviour was appalling." Wow. I was intimidated by this suggestion. I had enormous respect for Daniel, and his Rhubarb! play, The Noam Chomsky Lectures, actually took larger theatres and critics to task. He's a shit-kicker, and that's what I love about his work. He was challenging me, I guess, to act like an artistic director and like a "man." I couldn't resist the challenge. I mean, was I going to defend my "Brood" or not? I vowed to call Urjo and Jackie. I'd always been intimidated by them. Urjo always hangs out with die Stratford crowd and with die kind of actors

— many of whom are closeted (or straight) and uncomfortable with gay men — who always seem to avoid me (and Buddies) like the plague. Jackie's husband is a Stratford actor, Ben Campbell, and Jackie and Urjo are part of a theatre scene that is threatened by out-of-the-closet queers (though they would deny it, I'm sure). And the two of them always acted like brother and sister. The three of us had already had a couple of run-ins on a radio panel about dramaturgy. I knew they both thought that my whole "opportunity without interference" philosophy was bunk, and they completely disagreed with my criticisms of traditional Canadian dramaturgy. Of course, they would say that they believed in "responsive" dramaturgy, tJhat they wouldn't force criticism on a playwright who didn't want or need it. But I would always say to them, "Don't you realize you're in a position of enormous power?" From this little Rhubarb! altercation ! saw that they were both in tremendous denial about their influence. I can't remember who I called first, but their reactions were similar. Urjo was a little angrier than Jackie, and they both treated me like a beetle in a huff I didn't get mad. I just told them that I thought that their behaviour was impolite and unprofessional. That made them cranky. They claimed that it was a raucous, audience-participation situation. "Isn't this supposed to be avant-garde theatre?" one of them asked, showing their resentment towards the whole exercise. I explained to them that avant-garde or not, some plays in Rhubarb! were audience-participation plays and others weren't. Then I tried to make them realize that they were tremendously powerful people, and that their reaction was very important, and certainly noticed by the young, impressionable artists at Rhubarb! They just scoffed. Neither of them could accept the notion of their power. They argued, "Nobody knows who we are." Oh, come on. Everybody recognizes Urjo's profile. He must weigh 300 pounds and he walks with a cane. That sets him apart from most theatregoers. Ultimately, confronting them only alienated them from me and from Rhubarb! "Well, if that's the way you feel," said Urjo, "then I just won't bother coming again." And he slammed down the phone. I don't think Urjo has ever liked me much. Once, on a dramaturgy panel he said something very revealing. I was going on about doing outrageous theatre, and why that was important. Urjo suddenly went a bit nuts. "You think you're the only person who's outrageous!" he said. "You're not the only one. You think that you've invented outrageous!"

ITi,

I was surprised by his little outburst. And I definitely thought he had no point. Since I run around town in a dress, and get my picture taken on Pride Day doing all sorts of obscene things on Buddies floats, I really think I deserve to call myself outrageous. I mean, when was die last time Urjo wore a dress in public? Once these melodramas were over, it was time to go on tour. Tim arranged for us to take Drag Queens in Outer Space to The inoceros in San Francisco. It all came about because there was an International Gay Theatre Festival to be held in Seattle by the Alice B. Theatre. Tim arranged for us to perform in Seattle and then take the play down to San Francisco for a run at Rhino. Edward Roy directed the play and I played Lana Lust. Ken McDougall played Judy Goose and newcomer Gordon MacKeracher played Marlene Delorme. We had a lot of fun. Like the Lola tour, it was great to pack everything up and hit the road. And I was really happy to have the play revived; I think a part of me was afraid that it would die after my fight with Kent Staines. It was very empowering to be able to ensure its continued life. Two important diings came out of that tour. First, Ken McDougall stole the show with his portrayal of Judy Goose. This was wonderful. I don't know about other actors, but I just love it when someone steals the show right out from under me (you see, Lana is supposed to be the star). It means that I have acting competition, and I have to keep on my toes. Of course, Ken and I had very different drag styles. I'm totally recognizable as a man, and I'm a very big girl. Ken could actually pass. And he was so funny, especially as the mother who goes nuts and acts like Joan Crawford. He looked just like]oan. I realized diat Ken was a brilliant drag queen and realized I should write a drag play for him. Later that year, I did. The second important thing that happened was that there was friction between Tim and me for the first time. I think it started somewhere in Oregon. Tim thought it would be fun (and cheaper) to drive from Seattle to San Francisco. So all the actors, Tim's boyfriend Taylor, and Gwen, the stage manager, all piled into a car and drove down. We got lost in some mountain range because Tim diought it would be a pleasant scenic detour. But that's a silly example. All I mean to say is that somewhere along the trip it became clear that Tim and I were like two dominatrixes battling for power. At that time, we were fighting over little things, but later there would be bigger issues.

The tour was a success and the play was such a hit that Theatre Rhinoceros decided to remount it the next year, when it was again a held-over smash. When we got back to Toronto, Buddies had to seriously consider the problem of our nomadic existence. We were tired of hauling our productions around town, and Tim suggested it was time for the company to find a home. I'd always dreamed of having a 3OO-seat theatre, something like Tarragon or Passe Muraille. But I couldn't have imagined the possibility until I had the support of people like Tim, Sue, and Edward Roy. Now, with so much support, it seemed possible. Tim's political and fundraising savvy would prove to be a huge asset in getting us a space. Certainly, the possibility of a home for Buddies played into a fantasy I had that all my anxieties would someday disappear. Since I had recovered from my breakdown, I had gained a boyfriend, but I never stopped being insecure about Buddies. Buddies would always have a lot of me in it, even when I had separated out a personal life, and even when it had expanded to include Tim, Sue, and Eddie as major players. I had concerns about the company getting away from me, but everyone always told me that if we were to find a home, there would be nodiing but security for me and my work. Maybe finding a home would mean that I could finally be Sky The Writer, and forget worrying about silly little things like homophobia and finances. One day I was wandering along Queen East and noticed that a building on George Street was up for rent. I remembered it as a video studio run by Miriam and Lawrence Adams where I'd acted in a film called Red Sonja, directed by Margaret Dragu, years before. I ran back to Buddies and told Tim about it. He didn't have much of a reaction. Then, about a month later, he happened upon the same space by accident. "There's this space on George," he said. "I already mentioned it to you," I said. Gee, already we were beginning to sound like a cranky old husband and wife. Well, it didn't matter who found the place first. We found it. It was per-as per.. fect. It had a front office, washrooms, and a little lobby, and there was a large theatre space with 13-foot ceilings and, finally, a perfect backstage area. Well, not perfect. There were no washrooms. We decided to take it anyway, because the rent was right. Tim arranged for us to move in early 1991. We had already arranged to do my fall production Ban This Show in Beaver Hall, an art gallery near Queen West. So we would open the space with Rhubarb! 1991. It was all very exciting. But Tim and Sue and I also had our eyes on a

1/5

space at 12 Alexander Street, the old Toronto Workshop Productions building, where we had produced The Postman Rings Once with so much success. Toronto Workshop Productions was closed and the building was vacant. We figured that if we wanted to make a bid on the larger building, it would look great if we were already running our own space. So we saw the George Street space as temporary, but exciting. Ban This Show was our last show as a nomadic company. A comment by Daniel Maclvor had inspired the play. During Hamlet he said to me, "I really wish I had seen some of your early work — the plays about artists and their boys. The non-linear stuff, before you got into the drag." I knew that Daniel was starting to really challenge himself and write non-linear stuff, and I think I wanted to impress him. I know I wanted to impress Daniel Brooks, too. I sent him the script. He gave me some very apt criticism, though it hurt me a bit at the time. He was always trying to get me to make my work more dangerous. The play was based on the friendship between Patti Smith and the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. The direct inspiration was a bad experience witli an eye doctor. I have never had an AIDS test. And I don't ever expect to have one (unless they force me to — hey, in this political climate, it might happen!). I may very well be HIV positive, but I have so many friends who have lived long healthy lives while HIV positive (without the HIV drugs), that I've decided to risk avoiding the test. After all, I practice safe sex. What's the point of becoming involved with the homophobic, sexist medical establishment? And since all the drugs they prescribe for HIV seem to have serious side effects and uncertain positive effects, I figured, why bother? So there's never been a reason for me to take the test. But, let me tell you, when you're an out gay man, you can't even go for an eye exam without some doctor pressuring you to have an AIDS test. You see, I have ardiritis. (I didn't get the diagnosis until 1994. But I've had it, apparently, for years.) One symptom of my arthritis (it has a very drag queen name — "Maria Spondylitis Arthritis") is a recurring disease called iritis, a severe inflammation of the eye. I had an attack in 1982, and then again in 1989.1 had no idea that my iritis was a symptom of arthritis, because I hadn't yet been diagnosed. I went to one eye doctor and after he examined my eye he asked, "Are you gay?"

I said yes. (I always say yes, fool that I am.) I figured he must have guessed because my name had been in the papers so much, or maybe I was just being incredibly effeminate that day. Anyway, he said, "You'd better get an AIDS test. This could be a side effect of HIV." I got very upset with him. "Is iritis only a side effect of HIV?" "No," he said, "it's also a side effect of arthritis and other diseases, too." "Come on. This is iritis. I've had it before. Can't you just treat it?" "Not before you have an AIDS test," he said. Jesus, he made me mad. I yelled at him and stomped out of his office. Of course, I went through weeks of thinking I had HIV because of what was essentially arthritis of the eye. And I wrote Ban This Show about Robert Mapplethorpe, who goes to get his eyes tested only to be told he has AIDS. Of course, the play was all about the "eye" and the gaze, because Mapplethorpe was a photographer. Tracy Wright was very touching and yet hard-edged as Patti Smith, and Ken and Daniel were great as various characters. Unfortunately, Earl Pastko was totally miscast as the sympathetic Mapplethorpe — with his long, drooping body and dark, heavily lidded eyes, he came off as far too villainous. I got the usual critical trashing for this "ejaculation." At one point, Pastko as Mapplethorpe pulled a long string ofTivoli lights out of actor Rob Pennant's ass. Well they weren't really up there; it was an illusion. It was supposed to be a theatrical image based on fisting. (For the uninitiated, "fisting" is the act of penetrating the vagina or the rectum with a hand for sexual satisfaction.) The critics weren't amused. Ray Conlogue said that I had ignored the "incredible violence" of a fist going into an asshole. Hey, what the fuck does he know about it? It isn't as if fisting is punching an asshole. It's a very gentle and loving act of sex, if you're into it. Sometimes straight people can be so stupid. But the audiences came. (I think Ban This Show was a good title!) When the play was over, I sat down in my little apartment and wrote next year's production, Suzie Goo: Private Secretary. Shaun suggested the idea for the play to me. He loved drag, and used to escort Jane around all the time. That Thanksgiving, he escorted me to a bar called The Lizard Lounge, and I lay down on the counter on top of a pile of Stovetop Stuffing. I was supposed to be the turkey. Shaun even made cute little drumstick wrappers for my feet. When we got drunk later that evening, we rolled around in the stuffing and necked. He just loved to see me dress up. Anyway, one day he said, "Why

177

don't you write a play about a corporate secretary type? You know, an office comedy around the water cooler?" The idea really inspired me. Unfortunately, Shaun and I broke up before Buddies moved into the new space in 1991. We were very much in love and the split was very hard for us both. We got back together again for a while in the spring, but it was never the same. We were too different. He was a crazy visual-artist type and at heart I'm a very disciplined literary type. I was depressed about the breakup and I sat and listened to Cole Porter's "Every Time You Say Goodbye" from the Red, Hot and Blue album until my depression swelled into something dangerous. If our decision was mutual, why did it still feel like rejection? Perhaps because Shaun was so much younger. It was like Glenn all over again: feelings of unattractiveness and worthlessness. Shaun made me feel sexy; without him, I felt less so. Looking back, I see that Shaun gave me a chance to experience the love of a really beautiful young man. But he wasn't just a beautiful boy — he was the first person who had the ability to wrest me away from my work. I don't think Shaun and I were right for each other, but after we split up, I lacked the energy to find a new boyfriend. I kind of gave up, and went deeper into Buddies. Everything else was moving so fast. Buddies allowed me to escape the feelings of vulnerability I had worked so hard to bring out through Jane. Buddies and Sky started to become synonymous again. I felt I could risk it, because Ed, Sue, Tim, and our new home would protect me. When January i, 1991, came along, I wasn't at all prepared for that new space, or that new year. And the next six years would be the most melodramatic of my life. Without Shaun, I was, in a sense, without a life: the events that were about to occur were so exciting, so political, and so work-intensive that I hardly had time to breathe. We ended up taking on the City of Toronto, most of its homophobes, and opening a 35O-seat theatre in the heart of the gay and lesbian community.

3 Buddies & Beyond

The move into the new space on George Street was orchestrated flawlessly, mainly by Tim Jones and our new production manager, Gwen Bartleman. Gwen, Tim, Sue, Eddie, and I were a very efficient team. The Rhubarb! that opened up the space was an exciting one, featuring the premiere of a work by Darren O'Donnell, a brilliant writer/ performance artist who went on to do other challenging, innovative pieces at Buddies. Darren's a strange, radical, often goofy guy. Sometimes he looks terribly handsome with his lean body and square jaw. At other times, when he stares at you with his wide and crazy eyes, its kind of scary. What an intense actor he is, though! And a really smart writer/director. He's one of those straight guys who always wishes he could be a fag. We became friends for a while. Many other interesting artists had their debut at that Rhubarb! Adam Nashman and Stan Rogal presented the first production by Bald Ego — Sonny Boy Recites from Ego, Hunger, and Aggression. Jason Sherman's first play, The League of Nathans, was produced at this Rhubarb! I had always thought Jason was too prettyboy perfect and handsome to be a real artist, but boy was I wrong! (Can you be gay dW sexist? Why sure!) Moynan King and Jonathan Wilson, two comedy types (who later came out as queer artists through Buddies) appeared in 1991, and Kirsten Johnson, who had starred as Ophelia in Hamlet, directed a very funny production by Glenn Christie called Fergus, Ontario which starred Valerie Buhagiar. My favourite Rhubarb! piece that year was Edward Roy's Creatures Like Us, which featured what might have been the most dynamite Rhubarb! cast ever: Eddie, Ellen-Ray Hennessy, Daniel Maclvor, and Ann Holloway. This was my first introduction to Ann, and we went on to become fast friends. Later, she starred in two of my plays — Jim Dandy and Crater. We share an affinity for vodka, dirty humour, and theatre that doesn't pull its

179

punches. But mostly, we just like to hang out. Ann is the mistress of brutally honest self-deprecating humour. She's a big woman, with blonde hair she keeps short, and she's full of raucous energy and sex appeal. I think my favourite thing about her is her deep, profound laugh. When she heard I was writing this book, she said, "Sky, don't forget to write about the night we licked the vodka off the bar!" And then she laughed. To tell you the truth, I can't remember it in much detail. I remember we brought a bottle of vodka to a party at George Street and drank most of it. But then one of us spilled all the remaining booze all over the little bar in the lobby. Without a word, Ann and I looked at each other, leaned over the bar, and did our duty — we licked it clean. After all, how could we let all that perfectly good vodka go to waste? Of course, I don't remember anything diat happened after we lickedawe eer it up. Ann tells me that for her it was the definitive moment in our friendship: after that, she figured I was a good guy. Ann and I bonded as outsiders. She sometimes doesn't get cast because she's not a conventional ingenue, or a conventional pretty woman, or a conventional old lady. She goes for the stereotypical fat-lady parts, but like Ellen-Ray, she can sometimes scare casting directors. Two minutes with her and you realize she's not a wimp; in fact, she's the opposite. Both of us have had our run-ins with Urjo and the Tarragon. My favourite tale involves the Tarragon Spring Arts Fair, their annual celebration of theatre. Tarragon presents little plays in every nook and cranny of the space, and families, teens, and oldsters wander about and groove on the carnival atmosphere. Balloons, fresh popcorn, and coffee. You know, the wholesome routine. But the Tarragon is a "family" space, and Ann and I always felt a little out of place there. Well, one Spring Arts Fair Ann wrote a little play, which was presented upstairs in one of the Tarragon offices. I wasn't going to miss it for the world. It starred Joe Ziegler and Nancy Palk. I got there early, and I was sitting in my little seat waiting for the playwright to arrive. And arrive she did. I caught sight of her through a window milling about down in the courtyard. Ann is just, well — how do I best describe it? — sweetly abusive with her best friends. It's the way she shows her love. So when I saw her, I yelled, "Hey! I'm up here, baby!" She topped me with something like, "Hey, what you doin' up there, you old whore?" I countered with, "Sitting in the audience waiting to see your fucking stupid play!" You get the idea. It was the braying of two foul-

Me, Lynne Cormack, Bruce Clayton, and Camille Mitchell clowning for the camera during a publicity shoot for Dark Glasses.

The audience for More Divine at 12 Alexander — it was my last Buddies hit.

Me, Gordon MacKeracher, and Ken McDougall in the San Francisco touring production of Drag Queens in Outerer Space.

Actors Christopher Sawchyn, Cameron D Severin, and Jason Cadieux playing wit. guns backstage after the More Divin. opening.

The original Drag Queens in Outer Space: Doug Millar, Kent Staines, and Leonard Chow. So gorgeous it's almost scary, huh?

David Pond, punk angel.

Jane, breasts fully exposed, yet somehow, unembarrassed.

Jane proud of her new caricature at Shopsy's.

Ken trying to eat Jane (or the camera) at a Homewood party.

Jane flanked by a shocked Gwen Bartleman (in sunglasses) and an unidentified dyke pal. We were trying to pry the Toronto Sun doors from the police, who were protecting the newspaper from a big scary... drag queen. Jane in a contemplative mood on the same day. Political activism can be glamorous.

Me, in Key West.

Jane was a lipstick lesbian before it became fashionable..

Jane waiting for 1991 Pride to star

Six of the ten Janes (l.to r.): Daniel Brooks, Darren O'Donnell, Edward Roy, Grant Ramsay, Wendy White, and Greg Campbell.

The only photo I have of Shaun and me. I was a willing slave.

Daniel Maclvor's birthday at my new Wellesley Street one bedroom apartment, 1994. Actress Caroline Gillis is holding the cake.

R.M. Vaughan and me.

Daniel and I in jail at the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival 1994. We were on our way to Alcatraz.

mouthed bull moose in heat, intent on showing their affection. I noticed some Tarragon heads turn. Those oldsters don't like nasty language, on or off the stage. Anyway, when Ann finally made it upstairs, she deposited herself beside me and one of the grey-haired ladies. Ann and I chatted and I'm sure we used some more four-letter words. Anyway, the old lady stood up in a huff and muttered — to the room at large — "Well! I'm not sitting here next to Sky Gilbert!" And then she marched off. If you wonder why I get paranoid sometimes, it has much to do with scenes like that. It's hard to describe Edward Roy's Creatures Like Us. The lunacy was inspired. First of all, everyone was cross-dressed. The cast played members of a family, then their ancestors, and then the present-day family again. Ann Holloway and Ellen-Ray Hennessy were fabulous as the family patriarch and the rake. It was breathtaking to see Ann wield such power onstage. Most women don't take up space the way Ann can. And it's not just because she's a large woman; it's because her personality has immense weight and she's absolutely comfortable onstage. Ellie was nuts in that way she has — her lunacy is very deep. It seems uncontrolled, but it's not. And Ed played a horrible middle-class housewife superbly. Maclvor as the colicky baby was just — let's just say he reached deep inside himself and somehow found a colicky baby! The piece was a huge hit and was revived as a seed show the next year. It made me want to work with Ann and Ellie over and over again. And, in the next few years, I did every chance I could. The Queerculture/Fourplay that year was a city-wide event, and attracted a good audience. Marcy Rogers presented her newest play, and Harry Rintoul from Winnipeg saw the premiere of his touching, realistic piece Brave Hearts. Daniel Maclvor's first collaboration with Ken McDougall, Two-To-Tango, was a huge hit. But a lot of drama was beginning to develop behind the scenes. Edward Roy had been assistant artistic director and a mainstay of the company for the last four years. He was beginning to write as well as direct, and it was time for him to move on. It was time to find a new assistant artistic director. Actually, I think this was when we changed the title to associate. One of the reasons we changed it was that we wanted the company to be a truly lesbian and gay company, and it seemed time to have a lesbian associate (rather than assistant)

-181

artistic director. I had my eye on Moynan King, but she wasn't an out lesbian at the time. Sue Golding suggested Suzy Richter, the lead singer of the Nancy Sinatras. I agreed on one condition. It seemed to me that Suzy was very smart, articulate, political, and talented — but she didn't know much about theatre. Sue rightly rejoindered by reminding me that there weren't many out lesbians with the professional experience to do the job, and Suzy would be the best. I agreed, but only on the condition that we hire two associates. I suggested Kirsten Johnston, who had enormous theatre experience, but was not a lesbian. For our years at George Street, the two of them had helped me pick plays for Rhubarb! and Fourplay because I had other things on my mind. What, particularly, did I have on my mind? Well, I think it's time for me to talk about my professional relationship with Tim Jones. This is difficult, for many reasons. First of all, I have enormous respect for Tim's abilities. He is an incredible visionary, and an incredible politician. He wasn't only my general manager; he was a partner who helped chart the direction of the company. But his talents were one with his faults. He didn't have the time or energy to attend to Buddies' accounting. Finances were an issue from the beginning. Tim inherited a company that was in bad shape. And one of the first things he did was help me instigate the move to George Street, which brought an influx of money. Tim's efforts to get us a permanent home defined the company and brought us additional community funding and support. But that wasn't enough to keep us afloat. In fact, we were always, almost inexplicably, cash poor. Often this was due to the ever-changing financial administrators. Tim was honest about the fact that he didn't enjoy doing the day-to-day accounting. So when we got to George Street we hired a series of bookkeepers. Of course, we couldn't afford to pay anyone very much, so the people that we hired were often moonlighting. It was a very difficult situation. The problems were compounded by the fact that Tim and the financial administrators that we hired never seemed to get along. I was never sure who was at fault. All I knew was that we were constantly meeting about financial crises and constantly bickering over how to solve them. I remember very distinctly that Tim and I once hired a financial administrator who wasn't wearing any socks. At his job interview, he wore normal men's leather shoes and suit pants, but no socks. It wasn't even summer. After the interview, we agreed that he was personable and

that we liked his resume. "But he wasn't wearing any socks," I said. "So what?" Tim asked. But we learned our lesson — he turned out to have a drinking problem. In certain situations socks can be an important signifier. During this period, Sue played referee. Occasionally, Tim and I would not speak to each other for a week or two, and it would be up to Sue to bring us together. She realized how important we both were to the company. Gwen was as philosophical as always when we bickered, she'd just shake her head and say, "Oh, you boys . . . " Gwen was right. It was a silly "boy" ego battle about who was in charge. I don't know why I allowed myself to get so petty, but in the heat of things, it didn't seem petty at all. Every time we had a board meeting from the time we moved into George Street, it seemed the entire financial health of the company was at stake. The nightmarish prospect of shutting down the theatre always seemed close at hand. In my paranoia I actually wondered if Sue and Tim were exaggerating the seriousness of the financial difficulties just so they could play saviour! In any case, it was stressful. I didn't have Shaun to get my mind off work, and since Tim and Sue told me they were my protectors, fighting with them made me very anxious. Every time we disagreed (and this seemed to happen at least once a month) I would go a little crazy. I feared losing both the company (me) and all my protection (them). Tim finally demanded that I never yell at him again. It seemed like a reasonable thing to ask. But for me, it was torture. Tim and I were just very different people. Tim never got mad, but, as I was quick to point out to him, that didn't mean he wasn't angry. I saw him as a very repressed person. I could tell when he was angry, but he wouldn't admit it, and that drove me crazy. But maybe I was too emotional. Anyway, we didn't make a good pair. Tim, short and silent, and me, the tall, emotional storm. I remember eating lunch with him once when we were at George Street. A very strange thing happened that I thought was the key to his personality and our conflicts. We went to a greasy spoon at Richmond and George with great french fries and burgers. We sat down and suddenly Tim said, "Do you mind if we don't eat?" I was hungry, as usual, and I asked, "Why not?" "Well, do you mind if we just have coffee and then you can eat after?" I was still confused: this was a very strange development. Tim and I had been having lunch together for a couple of years. "The thing is," he said, "there's something I've never told you."

'.183

"What?" I asked, fearing some great melodrama. "Well I . . . I can't stand to watch people eat. It's all my problem. It goes back to my childhood. I find it enormously disgusting to watch people eat. I just can't do it any more. Sorry." Of course, I didn't eat in front of Tim on that particular day, or any day after that, for that matter. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that I had been eating in front of Tim for years, and he had been finding it disgusting for years, and he hadn't told me. Tim's little speech dovetailed nicely with my own neuroses. In other words: it drove me crazy. I've always thought that I was too much — too big, too loud, too strange, too expressive, too gay, too everything for anybody to handle. And you should see me eat. It's not a pleasant sight. I was acutely embarrassed and ashamed for eating in front of Tim for so many years. Even though, technically speaking, it wasn't my fault. Considering our incredibly complex personality conflict, the amazing thing is that our friendship lasted for seven long years. Ultimately, the solution of our financial problems hinged on the possibility of another move. Toronto Workshop Productions had been closed for several years, and was kind of a ghost building. The City of Toronto owned it, and before our move to George Street, Tim and I became involved with the committee to save the building. We were partly self-interested, of course: since the building is in the heart of the gay community, we thought it would make a perfect home for Buddies. At first we simply attended a few meetings to save the building. The committee finally succeeded in getting an assurance from the city that 12 Alexander Street would remain a theatre space. But then the City of Toronto announced a competition for the space. The contest asked various companies to make proposals to a special 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee that had been designated to guarantee that the space would remain a theatre in perpetuity. The committee was made up of representatives from the arts councils, from the City, and from the theatre community. Sue Golding, Tim Jones, and I worked very hard on our presentation. It was a lot of fun, but a lot of work. The three of us laboured night and day — Tim over finances, and Sue and I over the vision of the new theatre. We positioned it as Toronto's Civic Theatre. Our original application was called "The Edge," and included four other companies: Hillar Liitoja's DNA Theatre, the Augusta Company (Daniel Brooks, Tracy

Wright, and Don McKellar), Platform Nine (Ken McDougall and Robin Fulford's company), and Native Earth Performing Arts. Buddies was to be the resident company, administrator of the space, and responsible for 13 weeks of the year. The rest of the year would be divided up among the other companies. If the others didn't program their own shows, then they, along with us, would program outside groups. The emphasis would be on new work by experimental and radical artists. We pointed to the history of the old TWP and its political focus. We mentioned the political bent of all the companies involved; Platform Nine had a mandate to deal with political issues, for instance. Native Earth Performing Arts presents work concerning native issues, and DNA and the Augusta Company's work was always controversia and political. When Sue, Tim, and I spoke before the 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee, we bowled them over. Particularly Sue. She was very impressive, very articulate. And whatever arguments they had against us she turned it into arguments for us. Tim and I worked hard, but I have to give Sue the credit for making us one of the three companies picked for the final competition. In the end there was Buddies, Theatre Fra^ais, and a coalition of producers headed by Vancouver producer Chris Wooten. From these groups, the committee would make a final choice. When we found out that we were one of the three, there was a part of me that almost hoped that we weren't chosen. I already felt under enormous strain, and my relationship with Tim wasn't positive. But Tim assured me if we did get the bigger theatre, things would be much better financially, and Sue reminded me that this had always been my dream. The way she described Alexander Street, it would be a heavenly oasis. I would be able to concentrate on my theatre work without distraction, and there would be enormous community support. I'm not trying to say that I didn't want to move to the larger theatre, because a part of me certainly did. But I was also frightened, almost swept up in Tim and Sue's ambitions. They were much more single-minded about this. I think their interest was partially political: a gay and lesbian theatre space on the edge of the gay ghetto would be an important step. Think back to the days when Peter Caldwell came to my play Lana Turner Has Collapsed! and told me he how happy he felt about being able to hold his boyfriend's hand. Every new queer building offers that possibility — the opportunity for us to be out and proud. Straight people sometimes forget how traumatic it is to constantly feel threatened by people

185

who don't like us. That's why we need our own safe spaces. And not just bars and baths. For Tim and Sue, a queer theatre space was a political priority. My main interest was in creating art. At George Street, I already felt like I was spending too much time worrying about finances: what if my administrative responsibilities at the new space were to increase? In the end I tried not to think about that. I thought about a home, and, finally, safety — for my own work and others. There was a lot of discussion in the theatre community about the 12 Alexander Committee decision to consider Buddies as a finalist. Reaction was mixed. Some people saw it as a move motivated by political correctness — how could the board refuse the gay and lesbian theatre company? How do I know? Gossip. And the gossip made me mad. You should have seen the expressions on the faces of 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee when we made our case. They were amazed at the thoroughness of our application. Later, one of our big supporters on the committee confided to me that our application was far superior to the others in its foresight, theatrical vision, and financial planning. So, what happened? Well, soon after we moved to George Street, the committee met with us again. Again we gave a sterling performance. We noticed that certain members of the committee didn't seem to like us, and that others, of course, did. Tom Butler, for instance, worked in our favour, a quiet force behind the scenes. He had been an actor at the old TWP and he understood that we were a worthy radical political theatre. Dian English, general manager of Factory, however, just scowled at us. We had no idea what would happen. In the end the theatre was awarded to the consortium of producers led by Christopher Wooten. We were in a state of shock. Though we hadn't read their application, we were certain they had the least chance of winning. Theatre Francais and Buddies were both established companies with a large body of work representing a solid constituency. If Theatre Francais had won, we would have accepted the decision with equanimity. But why the independent producers? It all had to do with the climate of Canadian theatre in the early '905. Phantom of the Opera opened in 1989 and it was a huge box office success. Its ultimate effect on the community cannot be overestimated. By the '905, the

old '6os idea of experimental art as a vital aspect of the cultural community had all but disappeared. The newspapers barely covered established Canadian theatre. The first wave of alternative theatres — Tarragon, Factory, and Passe Muraille — though recently neglected by the press, at least had government grants (huge ones, compared to ours) to fall back on. We all knew that there was no chance for smaller, newer companies like Buddies to get equal funding. The money just wasn't there. The mega-musical is a guaranteed hit. It can't fail. Phantom never had critical success; it was always panned. But that didn't matter. With a publicity campaign of a million dollars a year, you don't even have to put on a play. People are saturated by the publicity, and many who never go to theatre come out for the first — and sometimes only — time to see an event. In 1999, Phantom finally closed — after its lo-year anniversary in Toronto. One night I heard a couple of fags at a local leather bar talking about seeing the play. They went because Paul Stanley (the guy from KISS) was playing the lead. These gay guys were saying, "Hey, I've never been to a play before. It was neat." Do you get the idea? And this isn't just a gay problem. The mega-musical as "event" drags everyone out of their middle-class cocoons. The musicals and dramas at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre, in contrast, are in some way related to the other theatre seasons in the city. People might go to the Royal Alex and then pick up a subscription to a smaller theatre like the Tarragon and then work their way down to Buddies. But that would never happen with The Phantom. Phantom audiences are made up of old ladies, suburbanites, and gay men who have never been to the theatre, and who may never go again. The irony was that at this time we were constantly being interviewed about the "trickle-down effect." When the media ^zWcall us, it would be to ask, "Are you feeling the effect of the mega-musical in your theatre? Is it having an effect? Are you seeing bigger audiences?" Of course, the notion was ridiculous. In fact, I considered the mega-musical the enemy. These productions give people a very strange idea of what theatre is. I contend that once you've witnessed a play where a chandelier almost falls on your head, then nothing but an IMAX roller coaster will satisfy you. It irked me that Toronto theatre was caught in a time warp. The mechanical effects featured in Phantom, Cats, and Miss Saigon were typical of 19th-century theatrics. At that time people expected huge spectacles in their productions. Live horses, train wrecks, shipwrecks, ice skating rinks — you

18?

name it, the 19th-century melodramas had it. People like George Bernard Shaw contended then that these plays almost killed drama. Well, I contend that the mega-musical almost killed Toronto theatre. In fact, when I was on the board of the Toronto Theatre Alliance, I tried my best to get Livent, the Mirvishes (producers at the Royal Alexandra Theatre), and the Elgin producers out of the organization. You see, in New York, they have a separate theatre alliance for big musicals; they have a Broadway and an offBroadway theatre alliance. What does a theatre company like Buddies, which exists to create art, have in common with a company that's primarily a big business? I have no doubt that now and then the mega-musical business does, by accident, produce something lovely and artistic. But their real goal is to make money. I can't tell you how happy I was when Garth Drabinsky (producer of The Phantom in Toronto) was charged with fraud in the late '905. And it wasn't just the typical bitter schadenfreude. During my last seven years at Buddies, people were always saying, "WTiy are you guys always in such financial trouble? Why can't you make money in the theatre? After all, Garth Drabinsky does." Well, here's some news for you. Even by pulling all the grannies out of their rocking chairs in Bramalea, he couldn't turn a profit. Though megamusicals occasionally make money, it's still a very risky business. Theatre these days is not a guaranteed profit-maker. Not when you're competing against films, rock 'n' roll, and VCRs. It was in this fantasy climate of theatre-for-profit that Theatre Francais and Buddies lost to the consortium of producers. Their mandate was vague, but they said they might provide a transfer house for alternative-theatre successes. In other words, if a play was a hit at the Factory, and Factory couldn't afford to produce it for an extended run, then the producer's consortium would pick it up and run the hell out of it. Their mandate fit perfectly with the new rage for commercial theatre. Why not make all Canadian plays like The Phantom^. Wooten s consortium promised to help turn alternative theatre into a commercial proposition. The producers also promised to provide a space for dance (Buddies had, too), but whatever else they were going to do was pretty fuzzy. I was disappointed with our rejection, but also a bit relieved. One thing did make me angry, though. In their letter of rejection, the 12 Alexander Street

Selection Committee indicated that part of their decision was based on the fact that we represented some "unprofessional" companies. Unprofessional? They were singling out Platform Nine, DNA, and the Augusta Company because they were not Equity companies. This really pissed me off. Buddies in Bad Times Theatre had been a nonEquity company for many years before finally joining Equity. I've always had a strange relationship with the Canadian Actors' Equity Association of Canada. Basically, I think it's a very old-fashioned conservative organization. I don't want to diminish the courage and hard work that have ensured that unscrupulous big producers don't exploit impoverished actors; it's important to have an actor's union because actors are treated like shit by producers. But why not a modern actor's union, responsive to contemporary needs? When we had these troubles with Equity, Graham Spicer was in charge. I don't mean to denigrate him — I'm sure he was a nice old guy — but he was the stage manager for Spring Thaw. Spring Thaw sounds like a great show, and I'm sorry I missed it, but it premiered around the time / was born, and I'm no spring chicken. So I wouldn't expect people like Spicer to understand the problems of small avant-garde theatre companies. When Spicer was in his heyday there was hardly any theatre in Toronto, much less governmentfunded avant-garde groups. Equity was formed to respond to the twin forces in theatre at the time: management and workers. Producers were on one side, and actors on the other. By the time Buddies started supporting these small companies in the mid-'8os, things had changed radically. The lines had blurred. For instance, the Augusta Company was made up of three writer/director/actors. Daniel, Don, and Tracy would find that they, like many similar small companies, were signing Equity contracts to pay themselves. They would be the producers and the actors on the same production. Equity staff couldn't get their minds around that. Equity always seemed to have problems with Buddies. We were the last company of the old Theatre Centre group to join. Basically, a theatre company becomes an Equity company (which means they have to pay Equity rates) when Equity asks them. In some cases, theatres request Equity status because they have the cash and they desire the "respectability." But we resisted for as long as possible because we had no money and could not have cared less about respectability I always figured that the closeted types who belonged to

189'

Equity didn't want to deal with Buddies. In fact, we weren't asked to join until after Jim Millan's Crow's Theatre — a company we helped create! I knew that two members of the 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee had close ties with Equity I heard via the theatre grapevine that these two — Jim Biros and Maja Ardal — had expressed reservations about our application. I was so angry. Ken, Tim, and I concocted a plan. (Tim and I always wiped aside all our differences when it was time to fight together for a political cause!) We would take over an Equity meeting. Apparently Equity holds general meetings every once in a while. I had never even heard about them before — I hate meetings and had enough stress of my own with Buddies. Anyway, we found out about how things worked at these events, then we packed the meeting with members of the avant-garde theatre community. It was very exciting. Political action can be a real rush. Ultimately, this wasn't about our efforts to get the 12 Alexander Street space for Buddies; I figured that the Powers That Be had spoken. And as I said, I was happy with our litde space on George Street, and I was a bit relieved that we wouldn't have to deal with all the problems of a big theatre. No, our action was about a principle. Small theatre companies that choose not to be a part of Equity are not "unprofessional." Actors who choose not to be a part of Equity should not be called "unprofessional." That's it. We were defending our small theatre community and trying to make the higher-ups more aware of our constituency and issues. We had a fabulous time crashing the meeting. Usually, I guess, there are just a few older Equity types, loyal employees, and good ol' Graham Spicer in attendance. Suddenly, all these freaks entered. I think Hillar was there — certainly lots of DNA theatre types were. We didn't look like anybody else in the room. It reminded me a lot of Jane Goes to Court— zjane Goes to Equity kind of thing. When the time came, we put forward a motion. I thought it very mild. We suggested that Equity stop calling actors without Equity cards "unprofessional." We suggested that, instead, they call them "non-professional," a less judgmental word. It was all semantics, but I guess the Equity folks had read their Roland Barthes. They knew that language was sometimes just as important and influential as human action. They were afraid of even a tiny abrogation of Equity's power. Many at the meeting spoke out against us. Somehow, the motion passed. We felt triumphant. But what a backlash!

Soon after, the Canadian Actors' Equity Association sent out a mailing to every member across the country asking them to vote on our proposal. I had no idea whether or not this was a "legal" thing to do. In their little letter they stated, in no uncertain terms, that I was trying to destroy Equity. I have no idea what ultimate effect this letter had on my career. But I was pretty depressed about the straight theatre community's attitude to me at the time, so I figured a little more trashing probably couldn't do much harm. Of course, the membership of Equity voted us down. Good for them. But the truth is that being a member of Equity does not necessarily make you a good actor or a professional. There are lots of dedicated actors who don't have

the time or interest to be a part of Equity. Those are facts: vote or no vote. I know the Equity uproar turned a lot of people against me. I received several phone calls from members at my home, asking me why I was trying to "destroy" their organization. Of course I tried to explain that I was doing my best to improve Equity But if you've just received hate mail about someone — propaganda sanctioned by a national institution — who do you believe? At Buddies that spring we organized the wildest Queerculture ever. Jane went on a tour of her favourite sex spots in the Church-Wellesley community. And we inaugurated the Dungeon parties. I should probably talk a little bit about our Dungeons, because they did become controversial. We got the idea at a Buddies Special Events Committee meeting in the new George Street space. The Committee was a new entity designed specifically to create fiindraising events for the company. We were trying to figure out ways to use the new space to make money, and fetish parties were very popular at the time. Since Sue Golding was an outspoken S/M advocate, we decided to hold our own fetish parties to raise money. Sue and I thought it would be a great way to channel the energy of the Homewood parties. The parties had outgrown the house and there had been lots of very sexual fetish types at those events. I came up with the idea of calling the new Buddies event a Dungeon. I know that a number of people in the S/M community were angry that we called the events "Dungeons." I didn't want to offend anyone. To the "people of leather" (as Gwen jokingly called them), a Dungeon is run according to strict rules within the limits of safe sex. In their world, "Dungeon Masters" control certain rooms, deciding who can enter and exit — and

•191

when — and what activities occur in the rooms. Our Dungeons were, in this sense, not dungeons at all. But I don't want to suggest that we didn't respect safety or limits. We did. In fact, we always supplied condoms, rubber gloves, and lube, and our "masters" were always experienced and qualified doms. Ultimately, we were suspicious of the criticisms coming from the leather community, because it seemed to us that some complainers were just jealous of the popularity of our parties. Our Dungeons weren't really focused on S/M — though we did have S/M demonstrations and people were drawn to them. Instead, our focus was inclusivity. And that's what I loved about the parties: they were mixed — gay, lesbian, and straight — which is very odd. There was never any dress code, so people turned up in whatever turned them on. It was neat to see preppies hanging around with leather dykes and drag queens. It made the preppywear look like the drag it is! In case you've never been to a fetish party, I'll describe what it was like. Basically, anything goes. There was a great DJ, of course, spinning fabulous tunes. And, sometimes, S/M demonstrations. This meant, usually, that some one would whip some other willing person. Sometimes they would drip hot wax on them, or twist their tits. But the demonstrations didn't involve sex in the clinical sense. Only sex play, or what most people call foreplay. That's the important thing about S/M: it's consensual sexual play. No one is actually being hurt in the sense of limbs being broken. People rarely receive bleeding wounds from S/M — only when they want to, and only under strictly controlled conditions. The purpose of S/M is to enjoy the sensual pleasure of pain doled out in controlled amounts — not to actually mutilate someone. Sue and I thought that if straight people could understand S/M, they could get their minds around the concept of pleasure. I believe in pleasure, in the fact that humans were made to experience pleasure, and that pleasure is a good thing. In my mind, it's not bad to be a pleasure-seeker (presuming, of course, that your pursuit of pleasure doesn't hurt a non-consensual bystander). I also believe that if there were more S/M in the world there would be less actual violence. Sue taught me that the human desire for power is innate and unchangeable. Instead of trying to force people to ignore their need for power play, the important thing is to get them to explore power games in a fun context. The cop or Nazi in an S/M dress-up

game parodies, exchanges, and transforms power. That's why cops and Nazis aren't too fond of S/M — it threatens their privileged position of control. The S/M demonstrations would take place on risers in the centre of the party room, and people would gather around and watch. Usually we'd project silly movies or slides on the walls — sometimes old dirty films (which rarely contained sex) or campy slides of'505 kitsch. People, of course, would dance. With the music pounding, and the disco lights going, the Dungeons pulsed with sensuality. What made the parties controversial was that we weren't averse to sexual activity occurring. On the edges of the darkened room, we would set up risers close to the wall, so that the party space was ringed with alleys. And in these dark alleyways, people would sometimes have sex. Men, women, straight, gay. Whoever. Sue was very adamant about it. We were a sex-positive theatre and we should do nothing to stop sex at the parties. There were always areas where people would feel comfortable having sex. The great thing was that dykes and fags and straight people would all be fooling around in the dark right next to each other. It was true sexual liberation. Sue organized an elaborate system for dealing with the cops. She got a bunch of big dykes together to act as door persons. We had a system to alert everyone if the police showed up. Sue was great at this stuff. The police came to visit us at one of our first Dungeons, and Sue just looked 'em right in the eye and showed them our liquor licence. I think she freaked them out (she was, after all, wearing her favourite see-through vest) and they went away. I can't stress enough how important these Dungeon parties were for queer politics in the city. Nowhere else were dykes and fags partying and having sex in the same space. It made for the kind of unity between dykes and fags that was terribly important to Sue and me and our concept of the company. Sue would never buy the idea that dykes needed a separate space to have sex. Years later, when we presented the Dungeon parties at 12 Alexander Street, a dyke complained that the Dungeons didn't provide a special room for women. According to her, the majority of women have sex lying down, and we were being remiss by not supplying mattresses for the dykes at our parties. Well, first of all, if we wanted to avoid trouble with the cops, having mattresses at a party wasn't the best strategy. I asked Sue, "This dyke is complaining that women don't like to have sex standing up! Is that true?" Sue

193

replied, "Tell her to fuck off. I just had sex in an alley — standing up — with some hooker last night!" As always, Sue could solve any gender-specific problems at Buddies. George Street, in fact, was quite the party palace for lesbians. There was lots of lesbian sex going on in the washrooms there. Gwen Bartleman told me about it. In fact, there was one closeted mainstream journalist (who shall remain nameless) who was quite willingly dominated by some dyke at George Street one night. Gwen came running to me with the news, "Sky, you'll never guess what happened last night!" Then we told Sue. Sue said, "Okay, time to do some networking. She's obviously ready" Sue took the journalist out to lunch, and tried to explain the politics of S/M to her. The journalist was impressed enough to do a big mainstream piece about S/M and why it made sense to her — probably the first and last mainstream media piece that will ever be positive about the politics of S/M. It just shows you the power of sex, and how the sex that happened in our little theatre could foster gigantic political change. Is it any wonder that our politicians and police fear sex? I was reading Camille Paglia at the time. I enjoyed her book Sexual Personae until I got to the part where she asserts that the difference between lesbians and gay men is that lesbians don't have sex in washrooms. It was obvious to me that Paglia didn't know many lesbians. Sue later met Paglia, after she'd moved to London, England. She told me that Camille, thank God, had finally gotten laid by a woman. Apparently, this changed her views on lesbians — made them a little more realistic. Yes, a little sexual knowledge can be a wonderful thing. My summer production was pretty sexual, too. I tried to revive my spring productions by presenting a little play in the summer. I figured the dog days were a good time to take advantage of the space. I could slip in an extra oneact play without costing Buddies much money. I wrote a short piece for Darren O'Donnell and my very recent ex-boyfriend, Shaun O'Mara. I still loved Shaun, and thought putting him in a play was a nice way to keep in touch with him. Shaun, though he is a visual artist, was a child actor. I remember him telling me that he had starred in Butterflies Are Free as a youth in Barrie. He would have been great in the prettyboy Keir Dullea role. I'm particularly proud of that piece. It was a labour of love, like my films, but it bore the stylistic stamp of Hillar Liitoja: lots of chat with the

audience. I was also obsessed with the idea of including action that the audience couldn't quite see. This made viewing the play a kind of mystery — you had to guess what was going on in the scenes that took place off to the side or in the dark. The piece was titled In Which Pier Paolo Pasolini Sees His Own Death in the Face of a Boy. The unwieldy title speaks to how avant-garde the piece is in form and content. Pasolini meets a hooker and asks him to take a shit on him. This angers the boy, who tries to kill him. The play then shifts tone and characters. Two zany, effeminate fags — "Goodness" and "Gracious" — eat chocolate cake and talk about shit. There's a happy ending, though. I modelled it after the AIDS plays that are were so popular at the time (and still are). You know, plays where actors have lots of sex and then die of AIDS after renouncing everything for love. The actors in my play, who have amused you with scatological humour during the piece, end up declaring that "love" is the answer. It was my theatrical criticism of the kind of commercial plays that typify the charm factory. Ironically, it was very successful. Shaun's beauty and Darren's zany intensity served the production well. It's been remounted a couple of times since by other companies at Fringe Festivals in Canada and New York City. Around this time I also started making low-budget movies for pretty much the same reason — Shaun. I wanted to immortalize him and our relationship. Shaun was so beautiful, and I wanted the world to remember his beauty and my love for him. (It seems to me that some of the greatest movies were made by men who loved women and wanted to document their beauty. Think of Bergman's relationship with Ullman and Hitchcock's relationship with almost any of his female stars.) Also, I was frustrated, as many playwrights can be, by the transitory nature of theatre work. I would direct a play, there would be applause, and then the experience would disappear. At this time, I had only had one play published — The Dressing Gown. But I had written at least 20 plays for Buddies, and I had no idea if they would ever be published. (Since then, there have been two anthologies of my work — one from Coach House and the other from Playwrights Canada.) Film, on the other hand, is permanent. I'd always been a fan of Morrissey, Warhol, and Cassavetes. I've only seen a few early Warhol films — Vinyl, Haircut, and Beauty #i — but I've seen several of the Warhol/Morrissey films — Flesh, Heat, and Trash, for example

ils

— and some early collaborations like My Hustler and Bikeboy. What I love about this work is that it seems very real and it plays with pornography. Vinyl makes fun of porn, it's what the stars of a porn film might be doing when the camera is off. The films are unpretentious and funny, and they give us glimpses of worlds that are denied to us in the mainstream. The hookers, drug dealers, and slutty effeminate fags smash conventional ideas of good and evil. The standards of their world clash violently with the standards of middle-class society. I'm also a big fan of Canadian films like Coin Down the Road and Dick Benner's Outrageous, which I think are brilliant, beautiful slice-of-life masterpieces. That's what Canadians do best. And that's what I try to do. I hate the idea of trying to imitate American films. Why bother? We don't have the money or the sophistication. And that's what gives our films their sweet appeal. American films rarely have the honesty that the best Canadian films have. But I think the way Canadians treat our film industry is emblematic of what's wrong with Canada in general. We argue about whether or not to fund serious Canadian artists and then flock to bloated Hollywood love-ins like the Toronto International Film Festival. Most of the gay filmmakers I know (except for a very special one named Ian Jarvis) use their little gay films as a springboard to slick Hollywood directing jobs. I'm actually interested in directing little films and little plays. I've never been interesting in "getting somewhere" — just in doing my work. It's served me well, and I think it would serve other Canadian artists and filmmakers well, to ignore that stupid, deluded pop-culture machine down south. Maybe being an American boy makes it easier for me to see through all the gaudy sham to the frail idiocy at their centre. And, ultimately, being brought up middle class ensured that I would never have middle-class aspirations (been there, done that!). But I was also brought up on Hollywood movies. I adore old (pre-i96o) films for their camp. I've always been a movie fan. All About Eve and Now, Voyager are my bible and my handbook. I've lived my life with the shadows of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford crossing through my dreams. These women were allowed to experience life— all the pain and passion that a little gay boy was supposed to hide. That's probably why I like dressing in drag and acting like a movie star. But when I decided to make my own films, I wanted to emulate Warhol, Morrissey, Cassavetes, and Hitchcock. Hitchcock is the only Hollywood

director of the Golden Age whose films I take seriously. I've seen just about every one. What makes his films great is their realism and their attention to detail. There's nothing fantastical about Psycho, for instance — no special effects. Just Anthony Perkins' face and Janet Leigh's guilt. And in a Hitchcock film, the camera always moves for a reason. (I love his long panning shots — all of Rope, the staircase pan in Notorious, the first shot in Lifeboat.} Warhol and Morrissey rarely move the camera. These guys don't use typical reaction shots (i.e., shoot the person talking, then the other persons reaction, then back again). Instead, the camera moves only when something important is about to happen, an interesting story is about to be told, or for purely poetic reasons. I wanted to make films that took place in small rooms and were all about people's faces. About dialogue, detail, and honesty. I have no formal film training, but that didn't stop me. I decided to learn as I went along. My theatre experience was impressive, so I managed to score an Ontario Arts Council grant for first-time filmmakers. I decided that my first film would be about Dick Large and Ima Chicken — two lowlifes. Dick was a male hooker (the part was written for Shaun) and Ima was a female stripper (written for Caroline Gillis). It was called Fill 'em. Ima was in love with Dick and spent most of the film nagging him about it. Fill 'em was about an hour long and mostly took place in the bed in my Yonge Street apartment. It was an homage to Warhol. We shot it in two days. It's a lot easier and less expensive when you rehearse and use the first take. It also helps if you know exactly how and what you want to shoot, and you use long shots that don't require much editing. I've made three other films: My Addiction, My Summer Vacation, and / Am the Camera, Dying. I cast my friends — most are actors, though some aren't. The characters were written for specific people, and the feeling on the sets was always very cosy and fun. Mostly, these films juxtapose middle-class and working-class life. They haven't been shown much in Canada, but all of them were recently bought by Waterbearer Films in New York and are now available in video stores. My fall 1991 play was the one Shaun had suggested I write, Suzie Goo: Private Secretary. It still was, however, very much inspired by Sue's politics. My second drag musical comedy and an enormous success, it went on to win a Dora for Best Production in the Small Theatre category. Suzie Goo reunited

197

my favourite actors: Edward Roy, Ken McDougall, and Ellen-Ray Hennessy. Ken and Eddie were sublime as the cute femme Suzie Goo and the evil suppressed lesbian Carmelita Gulch. It was ironic, also, that Greg Campbell appeared in drag. Remember? Years before, his agent had told him not to be in The Dressing Gown — it was nice to see him come around. And David Ramsden was delicious as the evil Mr. Bag. Buried deep beneath the charm were many sharp political points. For instance, Suzie Goo is acquitted of a murder charge for killing her boss, Mr. Bag, when she reveals she is a man. The point: men in our culture are forgiven for killing their male molesters; women are, instead, questioned about their sexual history. (Suzie's choice of weapon — the hatpin — was inspired by a quip by Toronto's Mayor at the time, June Rowlands. Confronted with frightening rape statistics, she pertly informed the press that in her time, a woman was never without a hatpin.) A cute boy named David Walberg played an elevator operator. I didn't know David well, he was a friend of our publicist at the time, and just in from a small town in Northern Ontario. I had heard that he used to be a prostitute, and since I've always had a lot in common with sex-trade workers, I tried to make friends with him — to no avail. I didn't think much about it back then. I figured he was just a sweet little drag queen who didn't want to be friends with me. He was great friends with Tim, though, and he would figure prominently in Buddies events later. Anyway, after his stint as elevator girl for Suzie Goo, David did a little moment in Queerculture in his drag persona. Then Tim came to me, suggesting that David Walberg might do a full-fledged Fourplay production based on the piece. I said no, because I didn't think David was talented enough to do a full-length drag play. Little did I know at the time, but there would be a backlash when David became more powerful. There were countless amateur gay actors and writers who came to me with material around this time. Buddies was getting pretty well known, and so many gay men have theatrical impulses and think they are talented. I always say that every gay man thinks, somewhere deep down inside, that he's Noel Coward. But there was only one Noel Coward, and there never will be another. Around this time, Buddies began holding open auditions for the general community, and I ended up rejecting countless amateur gay men who wrote scripts and auditioned for us. Though we used affirmative action in hiring staff, we often couldn't find enough talented queers to fill the gay and

lesbian roles in our plays. I think many amateurs in the community saw this and resented it. And many of those I rejected came back to haunt me; sometimes it would come as a letter to Xtra magazine, and sometimes they'd get on some Pride Day committee or rise to positions of power in the community (as David later did). And let me tell you, they never forget a rejection. I would hear horrible stories about myself from potential lovers. I would try and start a relationship with somebody, but I couldn't get past the first date because the boy would come back to me and say, "My friend Ricky says you're an awful person." "How did he find that out?" I'd ask. "Well, Ricky's friend Bobby told him you were awful and into S/M and drugs." Of course, then I'd remember that we rejected Bobby's script. . . . On the other hand, that Tim suggested we move a Queerculture event into Fourplay was typical: the relationship between Queerculture and the rest of Buddies was proving very interesting. Some of our most daring and original work was being created in Queerculture — work which stimulated Fourplay artists and others at Buddies, too. For instance, in spring 1992 the Fourplay lineup featured a new play by Marcy Rogers, as well as one by Paul Couillard and Jim McSwain, and Summer Snapshots, a piece by Michael Totzke, directed by Rex Buckle. But the most talked-about event was a Queerculture piece by a dyke named Irene Miloslavsky. I remember Daniel Maclvor saying to me that he thought it was the most intriguing piece in Fourplay or Queerculture that year. What was beginning to happen at Queerculture was that dykes who had no formal theatre training began experimenting with performance. Irene was a perfect example. A small, slender, pierced, butch leatherdyke, she was very interested in the performative aspects of S/M. One of her shows involved piercing women with little needles, while another involved a whole nurse—patient scenario. I think Suzy Richter helped facilitate some of these performances. Anyway, the audience found them mesmerizing, Irene spent a lot of time in San Francisco, and I think these performances were inspired by the "urban primitive" scene there. People like Ron Athey were doing similar things. Another young fag from Montreal came to Queerculture and did a performance in which he was fucked with a dildo onstage. Things like this (which never occurred at Fourplay) were inspiring the avant-garde artists at Buddies — even some of the straight ones. I remember Darren O'Donnell

199

was particularly interested in Irene's performances. It wasn't sex for shock value: her pieces questioned both the nature of public sexual acts and our limits. But these performances would cause Buddies some problems later on. Two major events occurred in my personal life at the time. I began to lose one very important friend and to gain another. That summer, Sue told me she would be moving to London, England. It was very traumatic for me, as it was for many others around Buddies who were devoted to Sue. She was my closest friend and a protector of the company. I honestly didn't know how I'd get along with Tim without her! Sue was die one who always listened to the first draft of my plays, the one with whom I could laugh most deeply, the one with whom I could rant and rave deep into the night about the obstacles to sexual liberation. She was my soulmate. But I understood completely diat she could not continue as she was. Sue is a teacher and an artist. Her career is academic, but her passion is writing and creating. She was no longer teaching at Trent, and couldn't get a job in Toronto — not one that she liked, anyway. One of the problems is diat Sue is a philosopher who's never been interested in teaching "Women's Studies." She was offered many Women's Studies positions in Toronto, but she didn't take them because she's interested in teaching the work of men as well as women. In Toronto she felt trapped by the reverse sexism of the academic establishment. Her doctoral diesis director was in London, and she knew that she could get a job there. Also, she was quite frustrated with the lesbian scene in Toronto. Over and over she would say, "I don't like lesbians. I don't like the lesbian scene." It was too politically correct and non-sexual for her. In Europe, she knew that there was a more progressive, sex-positive dyke scene. I was devastated, but I didn't want to hold her back. She said she wouldn't leave Toronto for six months. I had time to try and adjust. At the same time a person entered my life (like an angel) to replace Sue: R.M. Vaughan. R.M. is writer from New Brunswick who had sent me a short piece for Rhubarb! called The Gentleman Caller. I thought it was beautifully written, and I was trying to hook him up with director/actor Hugo Dann. In the summer of 1992, R.M. came to visit, and I thought that he seemed very nice and intelligent. And very ambitious. He's a sweet-looking man: bespectacled, with a square face, bushy hair, and serious, studious look. R.M. often shuffles

around in baggy sweaters that make him resemble a cuddly, literary teddybear. I liked him right off. He asked me how he could get more involved with Buddies, how he could write for Buddies, how he could work for Buddies. I was a little overwhelmed by his request, and I told him so. I said that I loved his work and I'd like to have it at Rhubarb!, but I couldn't promise anything more until I got to know him and his writing better. Well, the talk inspired him to move to Toronto and hang around the theatre. I hesitated because I could see that he might become a new friend, and I was nervous about getting close to someone who might also be a budding writer and potential employee. But I put all such equivocations aside, because I was very much fearing the loss of Sue's friendship. In the back of my mind, I knew that he might be able to replace her for a while. At least he understood my work and was articulate about it. I hoped, as well, that he could protect me. R.M. and I were tailor-made best friends. He's as passionate about radical AIDS politics, and as dismissive of middle-class pretentiousness, as 1 am. Also, R.M. loves to dish the dirt — who's doing what with whom, to get where, and why. We both have a passionate sensitivity to injustice, especially homophobia, and we're both neurotic as hell, constantly fighting body-image problems. We often worried, together, whether we were just too damn political and artistic to ever snag boyfriends. Or was it just our protruding tummies? (R.M.'s doesn't protrude, by the way, he just thinks it does!) When we met, I was at the height of all the Buddies melodrama, and R.M. was a great listener and supporter. When I was being attacked, he helped boost my self-esteem (as Sue had done before). R.M. is also an accomplished poet. He introduced me to the literary scene again. I'd done some poetry readings in the early '8os — once I even warmed up the audience for William Burroughs and John Giorno at a bar called The Edge, on Gerrard. When performance poetry had a renaissance in the '905, R.M. and I attended a lot of readings, and eventually performed a bit ourselves. He helped give me the courage to fully "come out" as a writer, because he himself is so brave. I admired the fact that he was able to survive with very little money or recognition and to continue to pursue his art. Sometimes I envied his lifestyle — writing independently for magazines, doing his own work, and living from grant to grant (a lifestyle he often bemoans). He was poor, but without the constant pressure that I endured at Buddies. At the time, I couldn't imagine ever actually separating myself from Buddies. Still, sometimes I wanted to trade lives with him.

201

But I'm getting ahead of myself again. December 1992 marked my 4Oth birthday, and Tim organized a birthday party with ten Janes. David Roche, Daniel Brooks, Edward Roy, Darren O'Donnell, Grant Ramsay, Greg Campbell, and others all dressed up as Jane to celebrate. With Darren and Daniel — two straight radical theatre artists — dressed in drag (Darren was particularly fetching, I might add) it seemed that the Buddies dream of mixing the sexual and the avant-garde had finally coalesced. Costume designer supreme Wendy White wrote an "Ode to Jane" and did the best iemale drag a woman could do. Bruno Miguel, a young actor, was dressed only in a diaper and a blonde wig. He was Baby Jane. This was, I think, my proudest political and theatrical time ever. It was also the most secure time of my life. I felt completely supported by Sue Golding and I felt quite happy in our little home on George Street. With 20/20 hindsight, I'll say now that I wish things could have been frozen there in 1992. I had reached a sort of equilibrium, with enough support to withstand the sensitivity that came from my identification with Buddies. Though my life was consumed by Buddies again, and I identified with it completely, I felt protected. That spring, I was on the cover of eye magazine, dressed partially in drag and partially in leather. Inside, there was a picture of me naked, riding a hobby horse. The interview was about "not backing down." I complain about the uptightedness of middle-class fags and I talk about resistance and the prosex stance. I also discuss my new one-act play, My Night with Tennessee. I have one image from the summer of 1992 that won't go away, and it almost makes me cry. It's frozen forever in a photograph of Sue Golding and Irene Miloslavsky on the Buddies Pride Day float. (Our floats in die Pride Day parade were beginning to be noticed. In fact, they were often the scandal of Pride — mainly because they featured dykes doing very sexual things. My favourite float experience was sucking off a dyke, Joy Lachica, who was wearing a dildo and a cop uniform. It caused quite a stir.) I have the photograph in front of me now. Irene is wearing a leather cap, no top, and leather chaps. Sue is wearing sunglasses and these amazing laced leather pants. She's carrying a whip. They're dancing. A sign plunges into the edge of the frame: "KEEP YOUR LAWS OFF OUR LEATHER!" (At the time, the cops had seized copies of the dyke S/M sex magazine On Our Backs

from Glad Day Books. Sue had organized a march against the police only weeks before, and we had all turned up.) The photo is an image of resistance, anger, and rebel sexuality. When I look at it I think of the power of sex, and the power of Sue Golding, and how much I miss her. Sorry to get so mushy; Sue sure wouldn't like it. She'd say, "Buck up, Sky!" But in the fall of 1992 we received news that would change everything. My fall production was An Investigation into the Strange Case of the Wildboy. After the success of Suzie Goo, I felt free to experiment. It was a major flop with the critics and the public, but I loved the piece. It starred Shaun O'Mara, Darren O'Donnell, and Andrew Scorer (who had been Hillar's Hamlet). Ken McDougall had introduced me to a young genius named Steve Lucas, who designed the set for Suzie Goo; he returned to design Wildboy. The play was all about love and the dangerous power of sex. Darren O'Donnell played a middle-class gay man who falls in love with a sluttish boy (Shaun) who lives in the park. Of course, instead of civilizing the boy, the man ends up being de-civilized himself. Steve's set was amazing. The audience sat on the floor in a jungle, facing a small, realistic living room. When the Wildboy wrecked a fancy dinner party — by sucking the cock of the host — the pretty little set suddenly fell apart. The actors moved off to a remote corner of the theatre, and an orgy ensued. (I was feeling challenged by Queerculture events to become even more daring in my own work.) The audience was invited to come and watch the orgy, which could not be seen from the jungle. Some remained in the jungle; others accepted the challenge and became voyeurs. Hillar designed the lights for this production, and his avantgarde influence was strong (I'd never actually asked the audience to get up and move to watch a scene before). The play was a very special event, but, by theatre standards, a disaster. It was the kind of passionate artistic failure that I would never be allowed to have again. Why? Because in the fall of 1992 we found out that we were going to move into the 12 Alexander Street theatre. With Sue gone, it was Tim who was masterminding all the political manoeuvres. All this time, he had been watching the producers consortium that had been awarded the building. He knew that part of the agreement with the consortium was that they had to make some changes to the space; they had to start renovating, at the very least, to show that they were serious. But nothing happened. The building

203

just sat there, sagging and ghostly. The 12 Alexander Selection Committee had told us that if the consortium fell through, we were next in line. Tim kept saying to me, "They're not doing anything. We're going to get the space." I didn't believe him. But sure enough, in the fall of 1992, the producers consortium suddenly officially folded. Tim was in there like a bat out of hell. He immediately contacted the 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee and called them on their promise. Very wisely, he stressed that we were ready to take over the responsibility of the building, and that if we didn't do something about it now, the City of Toronto might lose its faith in the theatre community's ability to come through on the project, and the building would be lost to our constituency. These were excellent, effective arguments. The producers consortium had the official title of the 12 Alexander Street Project, and we had to form an alliance with them to make our takeover legal. At first we thought that Chris Wooten wouldn't cooperate, but he had litde choice; if he didn't, he would be seen as effectively closing 12 Alexander through his inaction. So, we ended up becoming allied with the very person we had competed with. Eventually, Wooten dropped out, and Buddies became the 12 Alexander Street Project. This meant that we had to have two boards: one to manage 12 Alexander Street and one to manage the company. For all the time that I was there, these two boards were comprised of the same members. Although Sue had left the country and Tim was doing all the manoeuvring, Sue was still the president of the board. When she left, she said that she would keep a long-distance relationship with Buddies and return every three months for a meeting. So, although I missed Sue, I thought I had the reassurance of her continuing political support. But this arrangement proved difficult to maintain. Sue had made certain to appoint two powerful members of the queer community to our board before she left: Tori Smith, a female academic, and Ed Jackson, one of the founders of the Body Politic. I'm sure that both Ed and To trie had the best of intentions, but they weren't Sue Golding. Where Sue challenged me with her audacity, her leadership, and her in-your-face sexuality, I found the new board conciliatory and middle-of-theroad. (I always like to remember one of Christopher Newton's favourite phrases: "The middle of the road is where you get run over.") Almost immediately — at the first board meeting without Sue — Ed and Torrie expressed concern about allowing Sue to lead in exile. "We all love Sue," they said, "but

how can she run the company in absentia?" They were right, but I didn't want to face it and have to let go of my protector. Sue was aware of all the dangers that faced us during the move and she vowed to stay on. But there was one thing Sue hadn't reckoned on. In the spring of 1993,1 picked up the phone and said the wrong thing. It was as simple as that, really. Before that fateful day, I was relatively innocent about the media. I assumed that they wouldn't support me in my gay work, but I didn't think they would ever go on an all-out attack against us. But that's what happened. That spring the Special Events Committee went to town in choosing very sexual events. They asked Shannon Bell (who was soon to become a new Buddies board member) to do a talk and show her ejaculation video. It was billed as a "Female Ejaculation Pyjama Party." Irene Miloslavsky presented an S/M demonstration; part play, part reality, it was billed as an "s/M Workshop." These works were a logical extension of the development of dyke work at Buddies. The idea was to get very sexual lesbians exploring in the safe atmosphere of Queerculture and then encourage them to move into theatre performance. Of course there is an element of S/M that quite simply is performance, and that was part of it, too. Looking back, I can see that our brochure for Queerculture must have shocked people who knew nothing about the context, but at the time it was a logical development of the feminist work at Buddies. These women were discovering their sexual power and they wanted to express it. Well, one day, I was working in the little George Street office with Tim when the phone rang. Tim said it was Christina Blizzard, a columnist from the Toronto Sun. We got calls from theatre critics all the time, asking for information for preview articles. I had never heard of Christina Blizzard. I'd never dealt with the news department of the press before, only the arts and entertainment people. Anyway, at the time I didn't really think about the distinction. So we chatted away. The conversation quickly became unpleasant. I can't remember exactly what was said, but she obviously had our Queerculture brochure right in front of her. She was outraged from the start. The questions were typical, conservative, reactionary: "So what exactly are you doing having an S/M workshop? Is this where our government funds are going?" She was angry and provocative.

'M-5

I quickly lost my patience and started to confront her. "Do you have sex?" I asked. "Of course I have sex," she said. "Well, if you're a sexual person, you'd understand that sometimes people like to get a little rough when they're having sex." She was obviously disgusted. The whole conversation was very brief, and I think I slammed down the phone on her and said something like, "Boy, was she a live one." Tim and I didn't think much about it. The next day there was an article in the Toronto Sun that changed our lives. In it, Blizzard launched an all-out attack on Buddies, stating that government funds were being used to finance perversion. She called Buddies a "sex club," and quoted, completely out of context, the provocative titles of our events. I had been very clear with her during our conversation that these activities were spearheaded by women and had explained to her that these workshops and performances were feminist work. Of course, she ignored all that. She painted me as a dangerous, whip-wielding sadist who was using government money to live out my sexual fantasies with my favourite boytoys. Of course, nothing could have been further from the truth. Queerculture wasn't even funded by the arts councils — we didn't pay the people who participated except to give them a cut of the door. The performers were essentially volunteers. These events were an audience-development project for Fourplay, helping to expand Buddies' audience. Queerculture cost us very little, probably a couple of thousand dollars at the most. At that time, the Buddies budget had grown to about $300,000 dollars a year; the Queerculture events were a mere drop in the bucket. If we had been more careful (and we were later), we could have made a good case for saying that the Queerculture events were supported by fundraising, not by the government. The "government funding" that Christina Blizzard was so concerned about was going into paying theatre professionals — actors and stage managers and designers — and paying rent and administrative salaries. It was not all being "wasted" on a half-hour piece of S/M performance art that was performed twice to develop our audience base. The controversial Dungeon parties (a major element of Queerculture) didn't cost us anything. They were fundraising events. From their inception, they made at least $15,000 each year for the company. But Christina Blizzard wasn't interested in these details. She wasn't even interested in Buddies. She was interested in attacking government funding for the arts. And we were an easy scapegoat. We had been part of one of these attacks before; during the run of Drag Queens on Trial, Conservative

MP Otto Jelinek launched an attack on Buddies in federal parliament. We were on a list detailing examples of government funding wastage devised by an ultra-right-wing group called "The Citizens' Coalition." The Canada Council asked us for copies of our reviews, and sent them off to Ottawa as defence. The assault quickly ended when people found out that we were an award-winning theatre company and that Drag Queens on Trial was a critically acclaimed play. Otto Jelinek stopped attacking us because he could see that we weren't the sitting ducks he had assumed we were. Christina Blizzard similarly assumed she had attacked a bunch of noaccount amateurs who were ridiculous candidates for government support. She knew nothing about theatre. But that's where the similarity ends. Because, unlike the Otto Jelinek attack, which fizzled out, the Christina Blizzard attack spread like wildfire. Why? I can diink of four possible reasons. First of all, Blizzard was not acting alone. Her article was quicldy taken up by conservative members of the city council and members of the religious right. Later, when we started to defend ourselves against the allegations at Toronto City Hall, we witnessed countless born-again Christians from Scarborough and the "905" area of Toronto railing against sodomy and AIDS. These were the same type of people I used to watch, bemused, attacking the innocent women outside the abortion clinic; maybe it was some sort of retribution for not running out and helping those poor harassed women. The truth is, those small-town born-again Christians are always organized. Once the conservative city councillors started ranting against us, the far-right Christians organized massive letter-writing campaigns to newspapers and to other, less conservative city councillors. Secondly, when we produced Drag Queens on Trial we were a small-time operation. Our yearly budget was much less than $100,000 and we had no permanent employees (except me). We didn't have a theatre, and we certainly weren't about to move into a 35O-seat venue in the heart of downtown. You see, part of the deal when we took over the 12 Alexander Street Project was that we were entitled to $2 million in renovation funds. This is something Christina Blizzard mentioned over and over in her article, and this figure was dragged out every time Buddies in Bad Times was mentioned in the papers — even long after we moved into the new space two years later. It was as if columnists couldn't get over the fact that this bunch of fags and dykes could get $2 million for anything. What bugged the hell out of me was that the

20?

finances never seemed to stop shocking people. You could just hear them saying, "Two million dollars? And they have those little sex parties? And people are starving?" Two million dollars would certainly have funded a lot of orgies, but it's not very much money to renovate a theatre. And we needed every penny of it. (One argument I always used against Blizzard was that if we were actually running a sex club we wouldn't need government funding. Sex clubs are lucrative?) The third reason this whole thing exploded was that — believe it or not — we didn't have the support of the gay community. Or perhaps I should say the support of the whole gay community. Sure, there were dykes and fags who were behind us. And as the conflict grew and the rhetoric became more inflammatory, a lot of queers came over to our side. Our constituency probably grew during this time. I know I became more popular for a while, because to some people I was seen as the victim. Still, a lot of straight people assume that Buddies has always had the wholehearted support of the gay community. We haven't. Buddies was considered a fringe group: extreme and very sexual. Fags who hated drag hated me. Dykes who hated leather, porn, and men hated Sue. NOW magazine never supported Buddies because one of their editors, Susan G. Cole, hates pornography and is not too fond of kinky sex or men. And during this crisis we never got the support of two very important queer institutions: Xtra magazine and the Metropolitan Community Church. This lack of support hurt me and Tim deeply. Funny, the two of us being on the same side again. We put our bickering on hold: nothing pulls people together like adversity. Suddenly we didn't need Sue to help us get along. Sure, she was there, by phone, courier, and e-mail. She even came back for an emergency board meeting after the Christina Blizzard article. But Tim and I were true buddies in bad times again, fighting the battle together. So I had support. But not from the MCC or Xtra. No. Early on in our conflict, Xtra reported on Blizzard's scandalous accusations — not as an editorial, but as news items. They gave a balanced report of the accusations and dutifully printed our replies. And then their articles would end by saying, "Some members of our community support Buddies, and others aren't so sure." Or, "Buddies has certainly always been a controversial element of our community." Now you couldn't say that they were supporting the Toronto Sun. But you couldn't say that they were supporting Buddies, either. I confronted

Eleanor Brown, the Xtra editor. I was very angry because we so desperately needed their unequivocal support. We were a gay institution being attacked by the religious right. We expected Toronto's "gay and lesbian biweekly" to rise on our behalf. "Why can't you support us unequivocally?" I asked Eleanor. "What makes you think that the gay and lesbian community supports your theatre unequivocally?" she responded. I thought this was pure evil. Eleanor went on to describe her reasons for not supporting us: "My job as a journalist is to be objective." She gave me the impression that the fact that she was a queer journalist didn't mean she was obligated to support every gay cause. Oh,! see. You're the editor of a gay and lesbian newspaper, but you don't want to be seen as an unequivocal supporter of the gay and lesbian community. Well, that makes sense. It does make sense if you look at it from Eleanor's perspective. And I have no doubt that her perspective is typical of gay journalists who work at Xtra. You see, most of these journalists are young, inexperienced writers who want to jumpstart their careers. They don't necessarily have the talent or the connections to write for mainstream, straight publications, so they write for a gay and lesbian paper. Their goal is not to support gay liberation, but to make a career for themselves in mainstream journalism, so they have to make sure to appear "objective." How are they going to end up writing for the Globe and Mail'if they come out as uncritical supporters of queerness? This is a new attitude to gay liberation, and it's been called "anti-gay" and "ungay." These journalists want to get ahead in the straight world, and they think that if they ally themselves with the straights, then they'll get the support of heterosexuals. It means they all but say, "I'm not as gay as those old-style gays. I'm actually very critical of my own community. Heck, I don't even like my community." The straight community sees through it, though. Heterosexuals see queers as advocates, and they always will. There's nothing we can do about it; we chose to make sex important enough to talk about. We decided that our genitals and their activities matter to us. For some straights, this is bad enough, and no amount of equivocating will change things. Thus I, personally, see no sense in trying to obscure the pro-sexual nature of my position as a queer person; instead I choose to celebrate it. This has brought me an irritating brand of infamy — an infamy that limits me because I'm forever classified as a shocking bad boy. But I'm still taken much more seriously by

209

the straight community as a writer, thinker, and pundit than anyone at Xtra magazine. And I'm about as gay as anyone could be. On the other hand, to suggest that I've always been a wholehearted supporter of my community would also be false. I think that there are just as many stupid, prejudiced, inane, annoying homosexuals as there are straights. Maybe more. In all of my plays, especially The Dressing Gown and all the drag plays, I often satirized elements of my community. But one has to keep it in proportion. Here's what I mean. No matter what I have to say about Xtra, of the stupidity of its editorial policy, I still acknowledge the part it plays in the gay community. If anyone straight asked me about its value, I would say, unequivocally, that it was important to us as queers. I might bicker with Eleanor Brown over the phone, but I know she's not the real enemy. The real enemies are Stalin, Hitler, Ronald Reagan, Mike Harris, and Julian Fantino (in descending order of importance). Those are the people I would attack publicly. I might rail against the magazine, but in principle I think it's an important thing. Similarly, Tim and I felt that Xtra should support us even if they didn't like drag or leather, as a matter of principle. But they did not. The pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church, Brent Hawkes, took a similar stance. The Metropolitan Community Church is one of the many gay/lesbian religious groups that dot North America. They have their own church in East York, Toronto, and provide a unique opportunity for Christian queers — who often feel rejected by their own churches — to worship in a queer-positive atmosphere. Brent Hawkes preached against Buddies' sex parties and S/M demonstrations. I know this because I had spies. Franco Boni was a young Buddies director who began his work at Rhubarb! on George Street. We quickly became friends. Franco was a startlingly beautiful dark-haired, dark-eyed Italian boy at the time (he's grown up a bit since!). I found him articulate, intelligent, and passionate about gay theatre. You might think, "Isn't that nauseating — Sky decides to help a beautiful Italian boy. What about all the boys who weren't beautiful or Italian who wanted to work for him?" Well, let me tell you, the gay directors — and actors and writers — were not banging down the door at Buddies for work. Most theatre types were closeted, or at least afraid of Buddies. It was a surprise to find an intelligent director who was committed to gay work. His Italian good looks were an added bonus. As David Roche said, it's nice to have

a guy around who is "easy on the eyes." And our friendship has paid off in at least one big way. Franco went on to write an excellent history of Rhubarb! — called Rhubarb'O-rama — which I'm using as a reference for this book. Anyway, Franco was a perfect spy. He looked like a big, sweet, straight Italian boy. And he was totally dedicated to Buddies during our battle with Blizzard. Franco was lounging around his Cabbagetown apartment one day when the doorbell rang. It was Brent Hawkes soliciting funds for the Metropolitan Community Church. Franco craftily asked Hawkes if he supported Buddies, and Hawkes — mistaking Franco for a middle-class fag, I guess — confessed that he did not support us. He criticized our "parties." Of course Franco immediately ran to the theatre to tell me. Other people have told me that Hawkes even preached against us at the Metropolitan Community Church. I must say I've always found the concept o£ a gay and lesbian church a bit contradictory. Don't get me wrong — if gays want to be spiritual or believe in God, more power to them. But how can one ignore the institutionalized homophobia of Christianity? I find the religion quite anti-sexual. There are theories, of course, that Christianity was not always this way; if you read up about Rosicrucianism, or about the Masons, the Knights Templar, and the "black madonnas" in France, you'll find theories that Christianity originated as a very sexual, pagan Egyptian religion. (My novel St. Stephens touches on this topic.) I'm all for the sexy accoutrements of religion; in fact, I think religion looks pretty sexy — from the outside, anyway. Roman Catholics have all those golden naked Jesus statues set against that alluring red fabric. And the Greek Orthodox church has incense, and Judaism its circumcision rituals. But the doctrine of most religions — and all fundamentalism — is repressive and inhuman. So it's difficult for me to understand why gays and lesbians would choose to ally themselves with Christianity, because it's so repressive. For the stay-at-home dykes and fags, who like to pretend that they're just "normal" people, going to church provides a lot of comfort. The gay/lesbian church, from what I've seen of it, has all the prerequisites of most Christian denominations; it's boring and unsexual and everyone stands around drinking bad coffee and talking about God in a way that doesn't really affect their daily life. It's all very hypocritical. Of course, I found Brent Hawkes' attacks on Buddies enormously hypocritical. Our dear pastor and his wife (a short, once-muscular fellow who

211

runs a gay orchestra in our community) can often be found at Toronto's gay strip bars, enjoying the view. I wouldn't say this about Brent Hawkes and his partner if they weren't so two-faced, but I'll never forgive them for not supporting Buddies. (Hawkes is still playing the hypocrisy game: recent police raids on a sexy Toronto gay bar called The Bijou have not received his censure, either.) So, as you can see, without the support of the gay newspaper and the gay church, we had an uphill battle to fight. Finally, we didn't have die wholehearted support of the straight theatre community either. Sure, the avant-garde artists who worked a lot with Buddies were on our side. And the arts councils were certainly on our side — every single one: the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, the Metro Arts Council, and the Toronto Arts Council (there were two councils in the city before Toronto became "mega"). Without their generous support we never could have survived. During this attack, the Toronto Arts Council was under particular scrutiny for having given us renovation money, as was the Metro Arts Council for supporting our claim to the building. Ann Bermonte and Rose Jacobson at the Toronto Arts Council, along with Rita Davies at Metro, stood firmly behind us, and strategized with us on how to foil those allied against us. But the whole of the theatre community was not supportive. How do I know? Because they never'were. The general manager of the Factory Theatre, Dian English, was on the 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee, which ultimately gave us the space. She was clearly opposed to the decision. She probably thought that Factory deserved it themselves. You might think I'm just imagining homophobia lurking behind every bush again. But think about this — an anecdote, I'm afraid, that's not atypical. In 1984, I was on a committee formed by the Canada Council to discuss the future of Canadian theatre. I have no doubt that Christopher Newton masterminded my place on that committee, because I've never been asked to be on this kind of panel since — though I'm sure they've had one or two over the years. Eric Peterson (you know, famed star of CBC s Street Legal) was on that committee, and we got to chatting. He was very sweet. He said, "Oh, I've never been able to make it down to your theatre." I told him not to worry about it. "Well, you know how it is," he said, quite naively. "Like a lot of other guys, I probably wouldn't have been able

to walk in the door unless I had a paper bag over my head." Now, as I said, I think Eric Peterson is a nice guy. And I don't think he meant any harm by his remark. But that's the problem. I don't think he thought I would be offended by it. He took it for granted that it was a normal thing that most straight actors he knew wouldn't be caught dead walking into Buddies in Bad Times Theatre — because people might think they were gay. It was a very revealing moment. There were lots of people in the straight theatre community who didn't have an opinion about Buddies because they'd never set foot in it (nobody wants to wear a paper bag to an opening). So it wasn't easy for them to support us. They didn't know who we were, really. So, all of these factors helped fan the flames. Let me tell you, if Blizzard's attack hadn't been heavily supported by the religious right, if the gay community and the straight theatre community had been fully behind us, and, most importantly, if we hadn't been a sex-positive theatre company that seemed to be getting just a bit too prosperous for its britches, that little article in the Toronto Sun would have been quickly forgotten. Tim was the new saviour of Buddies. Sue did her best, but there wasn't much she could do from London but give advice. Tim got stuck with all the dirty work, and as the plague of hatred spread through City Hall, that meant forming alliances with city councillors like Kyle Rae, Olivia Chow, and Jack Layton, who would lobby to support our cause. (I'd always liked Jack and Olivia who, along with then-mayor Barbara Hall, had always been supportive of the theatre. I was suspicious of Kyle — Sue told me not to trust him and Sue is always right.) The religious right's campaign meant that not only were conservative councillors downtown speaking against our theatre, but Scarborough councillors at Metro Hall were, too, even demanding that the Metro Arts Council rescind our operating budget. Tim had to organize community support to go down to City Hall and audit meetings and show our presence. We saw some very stupid things at those meetings. Once, a fat, balding old councillor from Scarborough stood up and read out our mandate from our brochure, which stated that Buddies was a theatre for "queer and queer-positive individuals." He accused us of being prejudiced. Why, he asked, shouldn't our theatre be for all people, including those who were "queer-negative"? Wasn't that discrimination? (Of course, the same councillor would never consider publicly

213

supporting an institution that was "Jewish-negative" or "Black-negative.") The avant-garde theatre community and the leather dykes and fags came out in droves to support our cause and picket Metro Council. It was enthralling. I did my part, too. In 1990, Buddies introduced the Gina Mallet Award. It was named after that very odious '8os theatre critic of the same name, who, after attending one or two early productions, stopped reviewing my plays. At least Vit Wagner and Bob Crew actually deigned to review queer plays most of the time. Gina sometimes ranted and raved against avant-garde theatre, as well. Anyway, as homage to her incredible homophobia and her lack of support for avant-garde theatre, we designed an award named after her. It was a huge wooden meat tenderizer dripping with (painted) red blood. Gwen designed it with a great deal of love. I think that we gave it to Brian Mulroney once — he didn't come to pick it up, of course. In 1993 we decided to give it to Christina Blizzard. I remember it was a bright spring day, and I was quite ill with die flu. But that didn't stop me from going in drag. Jane just had to bestow this award on Miss Blizzard in person. I have pictures of myself in my gold-lame stretch pants and a very sweet pink jacket (supplied by Paddy Aldridge of the drag store Take a Walk on the Wildside). I looked absolutely fabulous. Beautiful even. Like a country-and-western singer all dolled up for the Grand OF Opry. Sometimes sickness can look good on you. We had quite a number of supporters — at least a hundred — so it became a little parade from George Street over to the Sun offices. We'd gotten a fair amount of publicity so the Sun was prepared for us. When we got there the doors wouldn't open. The place was being guarded by the police. We could see quite a few cops through the glass doors, along with a couple of sad-looking Sun employees, who had obviously defied the powers that be to opt for the treat of checking out our little freak show. We tried to pry the door open. I have a photo of myself, grimacing (but still looking quite pretty) as I tried to force the handle, with cops on the other side. There's a big dyke beside me, using what looks like her not inconsiderable strength to help me force the door. And Gwen Bartleman is standing beside me, her moudi open in shock. Her expression in the photograph is priceless; you can tell that she can't believe what she's seeing. She can't believe that an innocent and very

pretty drag queen like Jane could frighten the Toronto Sun to the extent that they would turn their newspaper into an armed camp. I must digress here, because I don't think I've given Gwen her due. I didn't dedicate this book to her because she and I were never very close friends, but we were always comrades in arms. The contribution that she made to the theatre was perhaps less political than Sue or Tim; instead, she was our faithful guard dog. I know she wouldn't mind being described that way. I remember one day we got a phone call — I think it was before a Dungeon party — from an anonymous caller who said he was going to "beat up all the fags" at Buddies. Gwen immediately went back to her office and pulled out a wooden bat she kept ready for such occasions. That night she stood for hours outside the theatre, holding that bat, ready to take on all comers. Of course, the cowardly homophobes never showed up. But I'll never forget that image — or her courage. Anyway, I wasn't able to bestow the award on Miss Blizzard personally. I think we finally managed to shove it through the door where it clanked to the floor. Mission accomplished. We all had a good laugh and went home. I was living in Sue's old apartment at that time. I'd decided to move out of the Yonge Street place where Shaun and I had had so much fun. The memories were too much. And when Sue left, she sold me much of her furniture (for scandalously little) and rented me her charming place. But I wasn't happy there either. It reminded me too much of Sue. And it was at the edge of Cabbagetown. My neighbours were street people and middle-class fags. I had little in common with either group (though more, perhaps, with the street people than the middle-class types). I felt sort of homeless, actually. I was very frightened about the controversy swirling around Buddies, even though on the outside I showed only a grim determination to fight back. But the lack of support from our own community hit me right in the gut. Sue was gone, and every attack hit its mark. Because of its lack of support for Buddies, it seemed to me that the queer community just didn't like me very much. Not surprisingly, my anxiety attacks returned. I remember calling up Shaun one night, very panicked. I asked him to come over and hold my hand. He was very sweet and agreed. I don't think he understood what was happening to me, but he was supportive in my time of need.

215

The conflict with the Sun and Metro Council's threats to stop our funding continued. We struggled on, trying to be a theatre company, trying to do our work, all the while fighting city council. It was a trying time. For a while, there was no resolution — only a great deal of tension. One side effect was that Toronto Sun theatre critic John Colbourne stopped reviewing Buddies' plays for a while. Tbatwas a horrible mess. I always tried to avoid alienating the critics, because when I did, others at Buddies suffered too. But John just made me so mad. I knew that he was gay, so I called him in the middle of Fourplay that year and asked him, respectfully, to review Fourplay for us. He wouldn't. He cited Equity reasons. (At the time, we couldn't pay Equity salaries and produce all those plays, so the Fourplay productions were, technically, produced by each of the separate groups putting on the plays.) Since Fourplay was technically a non-Equity show, Colbourne said he couldn't review it. I pleaded with him to help us out. I explained that if we were reviewed in the entertainment section of the Sun, and taken seriously as a theatre company, then it might be harder for them to attack us on their news pages. But John wouldn't help and 1 lost it. (I was losing it a lot around this time: it was symptomatic of how the pressure was getting to me.) I called him a coward and he vowed never to review another Buddies play again. I don't think he has. (I may be wrong about this. I'm certain he hasn't reviewed many since then, thereby punishing a lot of queer and avant-garde artists for my indiscretion — punishing them for his own guilt, really.) You may notice that it's been a while since I've mentioned any plays being produced by Buddies. That's also symptomatic of our situation. We were so busy defending our theatre against attacks and preparing for opening the new space that we didn't have much time to think about the "art." During this time we did produce a very interesting Estonian play directed by Hillar Liitoja called Ultimate Night (featuring Ken, me, and Marti Arkko), as well as an incredibly wacky surrealistic comedy in Rhubarb! by Peter Lynch called The Magical Key to Colourful Conversation. Peter is a charming and brilliant misfit who found a kind of home away from home at Buddies. I first met him when we performed in Hillar's Hamlet together. Effeminate and slightly dysfunctional, Peter is an enormously talented man, perhaps even a genius. With a rubbery face that can either look appealingly boyish or suddenly deformed — Peter loves to remove his front

false tooth — some just don't know how to handle him. He aced the leading roles in my plays Jim Dandy and My Night with Tennessee. He's so totally alive onstage that it's almost scaty. He formed a close alliance with another misfit, Ann Holloway. Ann would listen carefully to Peter's comic monologues, which were hilarious but sometimes didn't seem to bear any discernible relation to reality. Magical Key is one of the funniest, sharpest plays I have ever produced. I hope Peter finds a home somewhere — I know that since I left Buddies he's been wandering around. But someone will find him. His talent is the one thing that he can't hide. Other events were staged that year. Kyle Tingley, an East Coast writer, wrote a true and funny naturalistic play about coming out in Cape Breton for Fourplay. And Moynan King was developing her comic feminist work at Rhubarb! with The Importance of Being Beautijul. Moynan is very beautiful; with her slender grace and dark eyes, she looks like the perfect bitch goddess. But she's actually a fascinating, witty writer. Park Bench and Joey Meyer were standout avant-garde artists who also developed their work at Rhubarb! at this time. Darren O'Donnell and Stephen Seabrook produced two seed shows, one of them with a set by Steve Lucas which actually attacked the audience called Groove. Seabrooke and O'Donnell greeted the audience for their show at the door, naked. (Ann Holloway was horrified by what she predicted as their lack of erectile potential — but I think they were growers, not show-ers!) David Rubinoff, who later wrote the hit Stuck, premiered in the 1993 Rhubarb! with The Frog Family, and Nadia Ross and Diane Cave triumphed with Breeding Drum Majors, a feminist Brechtian piece. We also co-produced an Augusta Company Seed Show, but I couldn't be too involved with any of this stuff because of the political melodrama. Kirsten was doing a very good job as my associate and in bolstering my confidence. Suzy Richter was holding literary salons where dykes would read new work. I knew that we needed a hit for fall 1993, and, thankfully, I had written it during the previous year: Play Murder ended up being one of my most successful productions. It was about torch singer Libby Holman, and it had a dynamite cast: Maggie Huculak, Ann-Marie MacDonald, Ann Holloway, Edward Roy, Jim Jones, and Neil Girvan. Steve Lucas designed the sets and Wendy White created the detailed and accurate period costumes. I think that cast knew that they were committing a political act by even appearing at

mm

Buddies during this controversial time. And Buddies on George Street was a bit of a trial for the actors, who were used to more appointed digs. We installed a porta-potty backstage to accommodate them. I was in heaven directing Play Murder. The blithely subtle Maggie Huculak was possessed by Libby Holman. And Ann-Marie MacDonald, a writer herself, knew how to respect a script. I'll never forget her response when I tried to rewrite one of her lines. She said, "No, no, it's my fault. I'm the actor. I'll make it work. We won't change it. I guarantee that. Only as a very last resort." This is the way all actors should be; it was a welcome respite from the "Shelley Winters School of Dramaturgy." Play Murder packed 'em in, and got me a rare Chalmers nomination as well as Doras for the designers and Jim Jones. All this success, and Tim's tireless lobbying of City Council, finally paid off. Metro Council decided not to force the Metro Arts Council to rescind our operating funding. We were triumphant. We had Tim's relentless lobbying and organizing to thank. With this victory, Christina Blizzard finally shut up for a while, and it looked like no one was going to try and oppose our move into 12 Alexander. We could finally concentrate on renovations. Tim deserves all the credit, as well, for finding an architect for the renovations and orchestrating the move. We talked with at least five different candidates. Tim claimed not to have any favourites, but I knew all along that he was partial to a company run by Martin Leifhebber. Well, why wouldn't he be? Martin, who ran the firm with his partner, Myrna Moore, was a very sweet guy. Tall, lean, and soft-spoken — with a stray strand of hair he was always brushing out of his eyes — he reminded me of Gary Cooper in The Fountainhead. He and Myrna were both confirmed "lefties," and they came to see our plays and loved the theatre. We really liked them. I can't say that for the other candidates. Most of the other architecture firms we dealt with said things like, "Oh, yes, of course, we're interested in having your input on the design." Martin said, "We'll design the building together." That was what we wanted to hear. The design of the theatre space was truly a group effort; we enlisted the other participants in the Edge team to help us. Steve Lucas and Andrea Lundy were hired as design consultants. Hillar Liitoja and Daniel Brooks were actively involved as advisors, and had a strong hand in the ultimate look of the space.

By the time we moved into the theatre, however, two of the participating groups seemed less interested. Native Earth Performing Arts indicated that they had lots of spaces to perform in, and became less and less interested in performing in ours. Their production of Dry Lips Oughta Move To Kapuskasing had brought them enormous acclaim — after all, they were performing at the Royal Alexandra Theatre! What did they need with our little space? Buddies' association with the native theatre started with my association with Patsy and her native friends, and it continued through our time at George Street: we produced a couple of one-woman shows by Muriel Miguel, a very funny, talented, political lesbian native artist, who was a co-founder of Spiderwoman Theatre. Billy Merasty acted in a number of Rhubarbs! and Larry Lewis, once a teacher at the Native Theatre School with Patsy, also directed one. I could understand why Native Earth Performing Arts didn't need our new space. What I couldn't understand was why Ken McDougall and Robin Fulford of Platform Nine weren't more interested. It was true that ever since Suzie Goo, Ken had been sick. He had acquired a parasite in Mexico, and h just couldn't shake it. He was getting so skinny, but, he had always been railthin anyway. Ken and I weren't close anymore — just professional associates — after our successes with Drag Queens in Outer Space and Suzie Goo. I just attributed his lack of enthusiasm to his illness. Robin Fulford's lack of interest was a different matter.! have a great deal of respect for Robins integrity. Not a gay man himself, he's always been interested in gay and political causes. He's a sensitive poet, and with Steel Kiss he and Ken McDougall collaborated on a production that withstands the test of time. It's a brave analysis of homophobia: what's great about the piece is that the actors playing the homophobic heavy-metal kids also play the gay men in the park. Anyway, because I have such enormous respect for Robin's integrity, I couldn't understand why he lost interest as we got closer to moving into the theatre. Maybe the hugeness of the project scared him — it certainly frightened me. Hillar Liitoja, Daniel Brooks, Steve Lucas, Andrea Lundy, myself, Tim Jones, Gwen Bartleman, Moynan King, and Kirsten Johnson collaborated with the architect to design the new theatre space. We also brought in other consultants, including people from the dance community. I'm very proud of the theatre that we built. The concept, however, was influenced by economic

219

considerations. Tim Jones could see into the economic future of Ontario; he didn't believe we'd ever get the money we needed to run the theatre, so he suggested that we create a bar in the old lobby of Toronto Workshop Productions as a money-making proposition. This made perfect sense to me, and I immediately seized on the idea of having a cabaret with tables. I love cabaret theatre. My first company — which gave birth to Buddies in Bad Times — was called the Cabaret Company (after the work I used to do at the York University Cabaret). A cabaret always has that dangerous audience-participation feel — because a crowd can get drunk, the whole atmosphere is more alive. It can't possibly be "museum theatre" because a raucous drinker will shout it down, calling every spade a spade. The design of the cabaret was an enormous success. Anyone who visits the building is completely taken with it. One of the main tenets of Martin Leifhebber's architectural philosophy is that buildings should open out onto the street and invite the community in. He gave us huge floor-to-ceiling windows which open onto the sidewalk in summer. The metal staircase that sweeps down from the balcony to the wooden floor is the Cabaret's most dramatic design element. At first we thought it broke up the space, but it later became one of our most beloved architectural details. It's die perfect stairway from which to make a dramatic entrance, and drag queens immediately seized upon it as a runway. I'll never forget the opening night of the new space, when a parade of Latino drag queens danced furiously down those stairs. It was breathtaking. Everyone loves die cabaret. Sue, Tim, Gwen, and I decided to call it Tallulah's, after Tallulah Bankhead. She was the poster girl for my play Play Murder, a design created by Sonja Mills. Later on, we had Sunday "Open Mike" evenings diere. We'd have a crowd of between 30 and 60 people, at least. Sometimes there was a lot of talent in the audience; other times, not. But talentless people can be fun to watch, too. On the talentless nights it was like The Gong Show, with budding lesbian playwright Sonja Mills yelling, "Show us your dick!" from the audience to even the most obviously female performers. Tallulah's had real atmosphere, and on Sunday nights it became the centre of the TO queer theatre artists' social scene. I'd get all dolled up in drag and host the evening. I'd open with my favourite song, "This is the way I am" by Jacques Prevert. R.M. Vaughan, Ann Holloway, and Peter Lynch were frequent attendees. People got pretty drunk. Now and dien a performer who had overimbibed would fall off the stage. It was the only place in town

where standup comics and musicians could try their stuff with gay and lesbian audiences. Energetic young drag queens from Church Street could look forward to badly lip-synching as Courtney Love or Madonna, at least until they were given the hook. Marcos Magdalena, our fearless dykeboy technician, commandeered the lights, and occasionally ran onstage to sing one of her own wacky songs with bewitching bartender Marlene. And she'd tinkle the ivories, too. The Cabaret became a place where anything went. The mainspace was perhaps less of a success. Not everyone agrees with the design. I won't say we made a mistake, but I will say that the City of Toronto, die Government of Canada, and the Government of Ontario especially, made a mistake by not putting more support behind the project. Let me explain. Behind the cabaret at the front of the building is the antechamber. We called it that because we called the main room "The Chamber." We thought it was sexy and also reflected the theatres multifunctional possibilities. The antechamber is another little architectural gem. It was supposed to be a bit bigger, and it should be. Right now it's only capable of holding about 30 audience members, and it can't accommodate a large set, or much set at all for rehearsal. We knew that we had extra room in the building, and we wanted to have a rehearsal hall. But since space was at a premium, we decided to build a small room that could have many uses. Because the antechamber opens up onto the Cabaret and the Chamber, and can be completely closed off, it can be used as a lobby, a rehearsal space, or a backstage for the Chamber. It's a truly flexible room. The Chamber itself is a high-ceilinged black room, surrounded by a metal balcony. That's it. A huge black box. Originally, there was the possibility of a pit (which I used in my play Jim Dandy}, but it has been closed off now, due to the inconvenience of moving the floor pieces in and out. A lot of people didn't like the design of the big theatre — including some of the people who helped create it. Daniel Brooks, for instance, has often complained, "The ceiling is too high, so you can't just get on a ladder and change a light during a workshop." This really annoyed me. Daniel was involved in designing the space. Why didn't he raise his objections then? Maybe he didn't realize how big and forbidding the Chamber would be. Why is the theatre a big black box? Because all of the designers had a horror of the limitations of a proscenium theatre. We originally imagined that the space would be ringed with black masking, which could be easily moved

221

about to make the space smaller. We didn't reckon on one thing; to make a flexible black box work, artists need an enormous amount of money or an enormous amount of imagination. People like Daniel Brooks (for all his complaining) eventually presented some very imaginative productions using blacks to shrink the space. Brooks directed Daniel Maclvor in several of his plays at Buddies, and their particular design genius, along with the help of Andrea Lundy, solved the problems of the Chamber's daunting vastness. It takes talent and ingenuity, because without that you have to pay for set pieces that will cover some of the ugly blacks and the metal on the balcony. Some would say it was a mistake making the theatre a black box. But we were dreamers. We were thinking of Montreal and the fabulous avant-garde theatre/ dance companies there. The idea was to create a. flexible space so that artists with the imagination (and the bucks) of people like Robert Lepage, Cirque du Soleil, and Edouard Locke could create new work. But the Toronto theatrical avant-garde was unable to take full advantage of this new gift. And why is that? The arts councils didn't have the money to back them. By the time we moved into 12 Alexander, Mike Harris was taking power in Ontario, and the Ontario Arts Council was gradually being murdered. Art dies if it is not nourished. I'm very sad to say that artists Buddies encouraged with an eye to exploiting the black box and realizing their dreams just aren't getting the government support they should be getting. People like Hillar Liitoja, Joey Meyer, Death Waits/Jacob Wren, R.M. Vaughan, Michael Achtman, Diane Cave, Nadia Ross, John Delacourt, Darren O'Donnell, Moynan King, Kirsten Johnson, Adam Nashman, Edward Roy, Helen Posno, Glenn Christie, Peter Lynch, David Bateman, Diane Flacks, Richard Feren, David Roche, Franco Boni, Sonja Mills, Claudia Moore, Anne Driscoll, Kim Renders, Ann Holloway, Cathy Gordon-Marsh, Chad Dembski, Ken Brand, Greg MacArthur, Conrad Alexandrowicz, John Palmer, Shoshana Sperling, Wendy Thatcher, Steve Lucas, Tracy Wright, Paul Bettis, and Alex PochGoldin (and this is a partial list) need more funding. The Chamber was meant to hold all their dirty, crazy, funny, experimental/avant-garde dreams, to house their failures and their successes, their false steps — and their brilliant ones. But because it was built at a time when avant-garde artists began to see their funding cut, there's been a lack of artistic imagination and resources to fill it. I'm quite amazed at how old-fashioned the theatre scene has become

since I left Buddies. The more conservative artists seem to be holding the purse strings — and they certainly get invited onto way too many arts council juries. What do I mean by conservative? Producers who just love remounting American or British plays or old Canadian work — proscenium plays with plots. The kind of plays in which people smoke cigarettes endlessly and keep running to the bar to get drinks. (One must have blocking!) My friend David Roche used to call these plays "Four People Being Rude in a Room." For example, Canadian Stage and Tarragon regularly feature American and British plays. Which leaves Factory, Passe Muraille, Buddies, and the Theatre Centre as the only Toronto alternative theatres devoted entirely to Canadian work. But often these theatres have to remount old favourites to keep bums in seats. I don't blame them — they're under enormous pressure from the councils. I don't blame the councils — they're under enormous pressure from the government. I do blame the government, however, for neglecting the arts. Where do people think our cultural icons came from? Do they think they just appear out of thin air? The future Robertson Davieses, Margaret Atwoods, and Atom Egoyans will disappear without financial encouragement. They'll get depressed and take up something more lucrative. (Robertson Davies, of course, used to scorn government funding. But, hey . . . didn't he support himself by teaching at a university?) Another example: every year the theatre community holds an awards show which is a direct response to the rather staid and predictable Dora Mavor Moore Awards — "The Harolds," an event named after Harold Kandel, an infamous, intrepid Toronto theatregoer in the '8os. We all loved him, with his crinkled, toothless face, his alcohol breath, and his battered trenchcoat smattered with lefty political buttons. Harold was very old when he became the patron saint of the alternative theatre community, but we could always count on him to never miss a show. Or to stand up and heckle. Or to express his opinion of the action onstage. We all knew he'd fought lots of tough political battles in his youth, and that now he preferred to be around his avant-garde compatriots in the arts. Harold gave us pride in our strangeness, our queerness, and our outspokenness. As you can see, I think the Harolds are a great idea. Unlike the Doras, which are voted on by the entire theatre community, the Harolds are passed on from one theatre type to another. If you get one, you just give it to your

223

favourite guy or gal next year. There was always a sense of informality and camp about the Harolds — at least when I was involved back in the early '905. I happened to return to the Harolds this year, and Keith Cole (just about the gayest man on earth besides moi) was "Harolding" someone. Of course, he gave a speech. Keith is a filmmaker/actor/dancer/playwright — the sixfoot-four, 2OO-pound love child of Judy Garland and Shirley Temple. He's very camp, unashamed, and funny. He went on and on about his two favourite subjects, sex and theatre, and at one point he happened to mention sucking off a renowned (closeted) Stratford actor in the washroom of the Tranzac Club (a local Fringe hangout). Well, you could have cut the silence with a knife. Then he jokingly congratulated a woman friend for having an eight-inch clit. At that point, I heard some boos from theatre "professionals." They were quite seriously offended by Keith's behaviour. What happened? Some would say that Keith transcended the bounds of good taste. "Aren't there just. . . well. . . universal standards of proper public discourse?" I don't think so. I think there is gay behaviour and straight behaviour. Gay behaviour must be talked about, and certainly enacted, only behind closed doors. During Keith's speech a bunch of fags (including myself) were laughing very loudly in a back corner. Somebody shushed us. I thought all this was terribly ironic. Here we were, being chastised for heckling during an awards show dedicated to one of Toronto's favourite old lefty drunken hecklers. I just know Harold was turning over in his grave. Lately, I think these ironies are lost on just about everyone but me. At any rate, todays avant-garde artists just aren't getting the support they deserve. So, I don't think we should come down too hard on the Buddies' Chamber. Approached with vision, it offers great rewards. It's very cruel, though, to amateurs. Or to director/designers who don't have talent. There was one person who was consulted about the design who was very impressed with it. That's the ex-artistic director of Toronto Workshop Productions, George Luscombe. I remember chatting with him about the designs in a cafe beside the pre-renovation theatre. I was very nervous about meeting him. George had built the 12 Alexander Street dieatre out of a garage way back in the early '6os. He was a formidable man — very much the guru and eminence grise, and still a radical — tossing his long grey locks and

making a passionate point. I knew that his company was very actor-centred, whereas mine is very literary and director-centred, so we came at the craft of theatre from two different directions. But George was excited about the new designs. We bonded over our love for political theatre and our hatred of commercial fluff. He told me, with great relief, that he had been afraid we were going to build a proscenium theatre (his old theatre had been a charming Shakespearean thrust). Being a follower of Brecht and Joan Littlewood, he hated the proscenium theatre designs of the Tarragon and Canadian Stage. We had an inspiring talk. Tragically, months later he had to have his legs amputated due to diabetes, and he died a couple of years later. He was a heroic fighter, whatever the battle. I had gone to his home when he was bedridden and discussed with him the possibility of teaching summer classes at Buddies. But I left the theatre before that could happen. Upstairs, in the cabaret, we designed a mural dedicated to TWP under the direction of Moynan King. It didn't turn out right. The visual artist working on it with Moynan was very unco-operative and I blame him for the fiasco; he was a fine designer of TWP posters, but he somehow couldn't bring himself to support our mural. All carping aside, I'm very proud of the renovations we made to the 12 Alexander Street space — the building has served the theatre community well. The greatest praise I received for our work on the building was from young actor Bruno Miguel, who appeared in my opening production, More Divine. He had just come back from Egypt, and he was gleeful. "Sky!" he chirped. "Did you know that Buddies' design is just like the plans for an Egyptian temple? The front room is used for parties and celebrating, then there's the antechamber, and then the holy chamber itself?" I liked this idea very much. I thought maybe we had accidentally built a temple instead of a theatre. Maybe that's why it's so intimidating to people sometimes. The only thing to dampen our joy in the fall of 1993 was the news that David Pond, my old, dear friend, had died in Vancouver. David had moved there at the end of the '8os, and a couple of years later, was labelled HIV positive. He was always sickly, and I knew that he didn't treat his body very well, so in a way I wasn't surprised. But I was very sad. Gwen went to Vancouver and nursed him until his death. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I did call him, though, and

225

we had a very sad conversation. It was near the end, and he was taking a lot of pharmaceutical drugs, but he still made some of the old jokes. I'll never forget David; I owe some of my personal and professional success to his joy and love. With Shaun out of my life, David gone, and no boyfriend in sight, my life was becoming circumscribed by work. I was surrounded by people who wanted something from me: employment, money, power. I was very lonely, but there didn't seem to be time to think about getting a boyfriend. Where should I turn? The phone lines? The ads? I was a little frightened: I needed love, but all I had time to think about was work. I didn't want to have a breakdown again. In desperation, I turned to Sonja Mills, a hard-drinking, extremely caustic dyke who bears an uncanny resemblance to Henrik Ibsen (her Danish ancestor). I said to Sonja, "I need a boyfriend. Please help me get one. I'm so lonely. I'm surrounded by opportunists!" "Okay, I'll get you one," she said. "I know this boy — he's obsessed with me, and he's gay. He's 21 and cute. Now you and I are a lot alike, only you've got the dick he wants. Why don't you two get together?" She gave me Michael's phone number and we got together. It's true, we did get along for a while, and he helped me make it through that opening year. The only thing I have to say about Michael is that he was 21. Twenty-one. It didn't last long. But work was everywhere. Everywhere I turned there were people wanting something from me, or complaining about something, or both. A perfect example would be the Mollywood gang. I became acquainted with them in early 1993, and the association had lasting and important implications. I had heard of John Wimbs — he was a friend of Edward Roy's from Montreal. And I also met Christopher Richards through Eddie. Christopher and John were writing a historical comedy/drama about Alexander Wood, a gay man who had once owned the land on which the present-day Buddies now stands. Wood got into trouble for chasing young boys during the iSoos. John and Christopher invited me over to John's house to hear the script and look at the costume designs. I found it difficult to judge the possibilities from the work they showed me, so I suggested they do a workshop/staged reading of the piece at Buddies on George Street, which they did. It all seemed very innocent at the time. Looking back . . . well, it wasn't innocent at all.

Christopher and John did the reading of their play in the spring of 1993, and I thought it was okay, although I didn't think they had the tone right. Was it a drag show or was it a historical drama? And what was it really about? What was die theme? I wasn't sure. The workshop certainly showed talent. The boys told me that they'd like to produce the play at the new theatre on 12 Alexander Street. They explained how appropriate it was that die play be performed there, on the very property that Alexander Wood had owned. Again, at the time I assumed this was innocent, but now I think it was all part of a plan. I explained to them that it was certainly possible that their play could be performed at the new theatre. But I couldn't tell from the workshop whether Hollywood was ready for a mainstage production. I suggested that they submit it for consideration for Fourplay. We were just at the point of deciding what work would be in the spring 1994 Fourplay, so I told them that if they did a production there and it went well, then maybe they could do a full production in the new space. They told me that they didn't want to do Fourplay. I was sort of miffed, but I didn't think that much about it. Soon after, I had a party at my new apartment at Yonge and Wellesley. I think it might have been a housewarming. I had decided to move out of Sue's place and into a little low-rise across from the Wellesley subway (just behind the new Buddies). I still felt homeless and emotionally disoriented, though. I had moved into an apartment building. I'd always lived in old houses or above stores; what was I doing in this quite expensive (for me, at least) box? It all felt very surreal, like some sort of dream. I didn't know it then, but to some degree my feelings about this large and rather conventional apartment would echo some of the feelings I would have about the experience of the new theatre after we moved to 12 Alexander Street. So I held a big party to try and make myself feel more at home. It didn't work. All my Buddies friends were there, including Daniel Maclvor (who I still didn't know very well) and Edward Roy (who was, of course, a dear friend). I can't remember exactly who else was there, but it was fun, and my new apartment was crowded. What I do remember, very well, was the way Christopher

227

Richards and John Wimbs acted at that party. It was very All About Eve. I don't know if you know the witty, bitchy old film that starred Bette Davis — almost everyone does. In All About Eve, Ann Baxter plays Eve Harrington, a lowly nobody who "adores" Bette Davis's character, Margo Channing, who is the winner of the Sarah Siddons Award for drama. The self-effacing Eve becomes Margo's dresser and assistant. But Bette Davis gradually comes to realize that the innocent ingenue is trying to rob her of her career and her life. Ultimately, Eve Harrington ends up winning the Sarah Siddons Award herself. Exactly the same thing happened to me and the Mollywood boys. And they acted so much like Eve at that party! I wasn't the only one who noticed. They started by swanning in and exclaiming, "Oh my God, Sky Gilbert's apartment! I've never been in Sky Gilbert's apartment before. This is where all those plays get written? This is really an honour!" I'm not kidding — they said stuff like that. But they managed to pull it off so it wasn't blatantly sarcastic. It sounded almost real, but still very creepy. Then they walked over to Edward and Daniel: "Oh, I can't believe I'm actually talking to Daniel Maclvor! I've heard so much about him. The famous Daniel Maclvor!" You get the idea. It was horrible. They did the same thing to Eddie. Then they went over to my two Dora Awards, fondled them, and said, "Oh my God, two Doras, I can't imagine having two Doras! That's amazing. Oh, Sky, you must be so proud." At that point I really wanted to kick them out. I talked to Daniel and Eddie about it later and they both agreed that the guys were creepy. Later, John and Christopher produced dieir play, Mollywood, and won (I believe) seven Dora Mavor Moore Awards — far more Doras than I ever had any hope of winning. When they got their awards, I always thought of that party. But it wasn't just that. These boys masterminded a campaign to discredit my production, More Divine, and promote their own. I discovered this in the summer of 1994, when we were doing auditions for More Divine, my opening production at the new theatre. Some of my little auditioners said to me, "I thought the opening play at the new space was going to be Mollywood." I asked where they got that insane idea. They said, "Oh, I auditioned for that play, too, and it just seems like the perfect play to open up the new theatre. Why are they doing your play instead?" John and Christopher were spreading gossip during their auditions. When this happened, I started to get mad. Then, when John and

Christopher finally produced Mollywood in 1994 at the Bathurst Street United Church — soon after our new theatre opened — they were quoted as saying that I had refused to give them a chance to put on their play at the new Buddies space. This was a lie, of course. I had suggested the channels that they could go through to get a production at Buddies, but they chose not to take advantage of our development process. I think what really happened is this: those boys wanted to open our new theatre with their work, so they concocted a plan. They decided to write a play about Alexander Wood because they knew how appropriate that would seem for the new theatre. And when I didn't promise them that they could open the new theatre, they went around town trashing me, saying 1 wouldn't help them and that their play was more appropriate to open the building. One of the reasons I know this is true is that Christopher Richards said as much to me once when I was having a drink at Woody's Bar on Church Street. I was very drunk, and he came up to me and said, "So, Sky, your play is going to open the new theatre?" I said yes. He asked, "Why is that?" Annoyed, I said, "Well, because I built this theatre, I've been running it for 15 years, and I've been working like a dog to put on plays since 1979. I deserve to open this theatre with my play, okay?" "Okay," he said, "but do you ever see yourself resigning as artistic director?" I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe he was asking me that. "No, why would I?" "Well, it just seems to me that at some point you might want to step down." There was Christopher Richards, an ageing boy who had never been very pretty, staring at me myopically in that way he has. I could have strangled him. I then delivered one of my most egotistical speeches ever: "Do you know when you see an older man with a cute young boy?" "Yes," Christopher answered. "Well, you know how people always think that the cute young boy is a hooker and the old man had to buy him?" "Yeah, sure," he said. "Well, let me tell you something. Sometimes it's not like that. Sometimes it doesn't work the way it looks. Sometimes the boy is actually in love with the old guy. I've seen stranger things happen."

229

"Yeah, so. . . ." "So, I'm telling you that there are a lot of people who are famous because they fucked their way to the top, or because they sucked their way to the top, or because they knew the right people, or because they started with money. But then there is a very small group of people who are famous for one reason and one reason only — because they're extremely talented. / happen to be one of those people. Did it ever occur to you that I'm the artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre because I actually deserve to be? I know, stranger things have happened." And with that, I slammed my drink down on the table and walked away. I knew that Christopher and Johnny thought that they should have been the artistic directors of Buddies. That's what this whole thing was about. And the reason I tell you this story is that I'm sure a lot of gay men in the community — imagining, again, that they're Noel Coward — thought the same. Remember the story of the Little Red Hen, who worked so hard to grow the wheat for her flour when no one was willing to help? And remember how, after the bread was baked, all her lazy friends suddenly turned up wanting a piece? Well, this was a Little Red Hen kind of thing, as well as a take on All About Eve. Who slaved for 15 years to build the theatre? Me. Therefore, Christopher and Johnny weren't: allowed to open the theatre widi their fucking play. If I sound bitter, I am. But it doesn't matter — Christopher and Johnny got their revenge. "When their play opened, it was reviewed by a Globe and Mail critic, Jack Kirchoff, who didn't get a chance to give More Divine a bad review. (Robert Cushman beat him to it and had given the play a good one.) So, Jack made up for it (like critics sometimes do) by trashing my play in his review of Mollywood. He asked, "Why didn't Buddies open their season with Molly-wood instead of More Divine?" And then, of course, Molly wood went on to win all those Doras. Oh, jealousy, thy name is Dora. All I can say is that I never really liked their show. (I know you might think that's just sour grapes, but it's not.) I went to see it on opening night because I had to know what these two little Eves were going to come up with. Christopher Newton was also there, because one of his favourite Shaw actors had a minor role. (By that time he and I had made up over the whole Anything Goes/Salome debacle.) We had a giggle. "What do you think?" I asked. "Well, it's not very good-, is it?" said Christopher. That made me feel a lot better.

Before we left George Street there were still some fine productions to mount. Edward Roy directed a wonderful play called Tales of the Parkside by Edward Louis Cook. It's a touching story that follows a couple of nights in a gay bar, observed with loving detail. People adored the play, and it had a great cast. Eddie also did some smart dramaturgical work on the script. We had all been urging Sonja Mills to write a play, and finally she did. Dyke City was a hysterical hit at George Street that spring, and we revived it immediately, in the fall, at our new space. A sexual slice of dyke life — no compromises. Moynan King produced her first full-length play, Head of Snakes, which confirmed my confidence in her as an artist. Suzy Richter left Buddies, so we needed another associate, and I, once again, thought of Moynan. We were looking for a lesbian. I remember sitting Moynan down in a little office and saying, "Unfortunately, this is a serious question. Are you now, or have you ever been, a lesbian?" "That's why I wanted to talk to you," she said. "I am one now." I was so relieved. And if you think she became a lesbian in order to get a job at Buddies, well, you don't know much about sex or Moynan! Anyway, Moynan worked with me for two and a half years at the new theatre as my associate and did a great job. As I was busy fighting off Eves and hiring lesbians, Tim and the Buddies board were organizing the opening night of the play that would open the new theatre: More Divine. That summer we had a "retreat" at Jack Layton and Olivia Chow's house. They had offered it to us for one of our yearly staff and board gettogethers. We started holding them in the late '8os at Sue's insistence. The "retreats" began as country sleepovers, but then we moved them to Toronto and they became two days of meetings. These getaways were very important as Buddies grew. By the time we moved to 12 Alexander, we had quite a large staff: me, Tim, Gwen, plus an administrator, a publicist, and two associate artistic directors (that's seven). At the new theatre, we would also hire bar staff (approximately five), two box office people, plus one technical director for the Chamber and one for Tallulah's. That means the number of people we employed more than doubled. Of course, the budget for the company almost doubled, too, to $600,000 a year. Keep in mind, though, that this budget was still barely half the yearly budget of the Tarragon. And our grants

231

hadn't been increased by much. The projected extra income from our bar business was supposed to make up the shortfall. That particular retreat was very moving. Sue was there, and we were all very excited about the new space. I cried when I tried to thank everyone. I felt overwhelmed and overjoyed — and also very frightened. Who were these people? My staff? I never wanted a staff. Now there were going to be 15 little egos, all demanding attention, all needing love and concern, all fucking up, all being hurt. The tears came partially in gratitude and partially because I was terrified. This theatre that I had identified so closely with was definitely growing out of my hands. Sue was excellent at that meeting. She made us redefine the mandate of the company. We wanted to make it perfecdy clear — and Sue wanted to make sure that we didn't compromise — that we were still a queer, sexual place, a place where dykes and fags could work and party together. Tim and the capital fundraiser Tom McGillis had raised a huge amount of money for die new space from the gay community. The bars on Church Street — especially Woodys — were very generous. Woody's is a fabulous place, very beautifully decorated. During this time I used to hang out there, mostly with theatre pals like R.M. and Franco, though Tim and his boyfriend Taylor were often there, too. I liked it that the owners had taken time to fix up the place — most gay bar owners just slap on a coat of black paint, turn down the lights, and wait for the crowd! The photos on the wall, some by local legend David Hawe and others by famed gay photographers like Bruce Weber and Pierre et Gilles, give it a completely gay feel. The south side of Woodys is called Sailor, and it's all spruced up with naval paraphernalia and sexy photos of sailors, past and present. I can't say I ever found Woody's too cruisy, though — it feels too much like Cheers. It's typical that I was hanging out there to see my theatre friends and because Woody's made significant donations to Buddies. I couldn't even go out and have fun just for fun. It was all for Buddies. Tim and the Gala Opening Nights Committee had organized three opening nights: a glam night, a leather night, and a masquerade. The idea was to sell as many tickets as possible and to give a chance for different parts of the community to celebrate.

The whole thing just gave me another attack of nerves. I felt hugely pressured. My opening play would have to be everything to everyone. It would have to have drag queens and leather. And, to take advantage of the height of the theatre and the pit, there would have to be spectacle. Also, it would have to be touching and sweet — it would definitely have to make people cry. It would also have to be hilarious — people always expect my plays to be funny. Sue wouldn't be satisfied if it wasn't sexual. There would have to be something smart about it, something avant-garde, to satisfy Daniel Brooks and Hillar Liitoja. But it couldn't be too smart, or the donors might get confused and turned off. (Then there's AIDS. How could I open a queer theatre in 1994 and not deal with AIDS?) It was a tall order. And the amazing thing is that More Divine was all those things. I don't know if it was one of my best plays, but it was definitely a success. It was the only one of my plays that ever sold tickets in the new theatre. In it, I told the story of an imagined friendship between Roland Bardies and Michel Foucault. Quite honestly, I haven't read much Foucault (which is probably evident to any scholar who reads the play). But I'm a great fan of Barthes' A Lover's Discourse and die rest of his more romantic, accessible writings. The play is about two types of gay men — one (Foucault) a cold, sexually promiscuous libertine, and the other (Barthes) a stay-at-home, romantic, shy guy. Steve Lucas designed an incredible set which, unfortunately, didn't completely work on opening night. But nobody seemed to notice. More Divine opened with Cole Porter's "I Love Paris in the Springtime" playing and French schoolboys doing an umbrella dance in the rain. Then three little structures were turned to reveal Bardies's house, Foucault's house, and die house of Olivier, a boy who flirted with both of them. At one point, a boy sucked off Foucault through a glory hole in his wall. When it was time for the play within a play, Foucault, Olivier, and Bardies marched off with their umbrellas and ushered in the most incredible spectacle in the play: a huge proscenium stage just sort of floated towards the audience, pushed by invisible boys. The lights came up, and a black boy in drag period costume opened a cardboard door and entered the footlit stage. What followed was a "semiotic" farce, if you can imagine such a thing! After die play, Olivier chose Foucault over Barthes, and the despondent Roland decided to go to Morocco. The huge stage was pulled back behind a curtain, and a blue sky (which didn't work on opening night) fell from the ceiling. The boys unrolled yellow canvas

233

which became the sand. Bruno Miguel, as a Moroccan boy wearing only shorts, walked directly into the audience and asked, "Do you want to fuck me?" Apart from the sky, opening night went like a dream. Sue Golding came into town for it. Christopher Newton was also there, as were my proud mother and sister. At the end of the show, it really was breathtaking. The final scene took place inside a gay disco. Bruno Miguel, nearly naked and attached to a golden cord, was pulled up from beneath the stage and hung there, a twinkling boy chandelier. The doors to the antechamber parted and 50 opening-night friends poured onto the stage to join the party. The theatre, from the Chamber to Tallulah's, was opened and it was time to let loose. We did. I hoped that I saw goodwill in the eyes of the people there. I would get support now, wouldn't I? No more battles to keep the theatre open? Life would be easier, wouldn't it? This was what I had been waiting for, the climax of all my efforts. And it wasn't praise I expected, or adoration. I think I just wanted the members of my own community to not hate me. And to have enough money to do my work, and the support I needed to create. But things didn't start off entirely on the right foot. I was proud of the production, but I was also frightened by the pressure. What would I do next? How could I continue writing plays to order? The biggest problem for me, moving into the new space, was that I knew I'd have to please middle-class gay theatregoers. I mean, we couldn't fill a 35O-seat space without pleasing some of the more middle-class types. A lot of them were donors, and they expected to get a bang for their buck. The problem was that I didn't like middle-class gay men. I'd never been able to write for them — I'd always written for myself. I'd made fun of them in some of my plays, and gone on record in lots of interviews saying that I wasn't going to be an uptight "sweater fag." What is it that irritates me so much about these guys? As I mentioned earlier, I think it's important to note that I come from a middle-class background. Coming from the middle class means that I rebelled against it. When I see people aspiring to middle-class life, I want to tell them: I've been there. Turn back. It's not worth it. But it's more than that. It's the hypocrisy. Look, first of all, we're all sexual people. And most of us aren't made to be monogamous. Gay men have

created a culture for themselves that is honest about sexuality. That's the good thing. And lesbians are beginning to discover more and more about their sexuality these days, too. I don't buy that shit that gay culture is bad, that it led to AIDS. If anything led to AIDS, it's hatred. It's fags hating themselves. How can you be healthy if you hate yourself? I'm afraid that's what a lot of middle-class gay men haven't dealt with. They're still self-hating. I can't blame them for that — I'm still self-hating. It's tough when you live in a culture that often hates you. But instead of embracing their gayness, their sexiness, their effeminacy, their honesty, they do the opposite. So many middle-class gay men try to emulate the worst aspects of straight culture — sanctimonious monogamy and Christianity, for example. Or they want to become rich and successful and surround themselves with pointless objects. My work has always been about piercing through this hypocrisy. My drag queens sing gaily about sex and promiscuity, about jealousy and pettiness, about the joys of being rude, and revelling in life at the bottom of the social ladder. I love them, and I emulate them because they're not hypocrites — they embrace society's rejection and make a home that is — if not truly pretty — at least a lot of fun. So, no matter what, I couldn't imagine shaking the hands of these middle-class gay men and pretending to be one of them. And I didn't. I don't mean to suggest that I didn't shake any hands at our three fabulous openingnight galas. I shook lots of hands and smiled. But when the three galas were over, I was exhausted, and I never ever wanted to see another middle-class gay man again. It was very difficult. More and more, new board members came from the sweater-fag ranks. I was supposed to be nice to them, but I wasn't. I had lost the capacity to be nice and would offend these guys without even knowing it. Also, I was once again alone with Tim. This was a bigger problem than you can imagine. Looking into Tim's eyes on opening night, I thought, "Oh no. Now we have to go back to dealing with each other, without the bond of fighting an outside foe. This is going to be hell." I'm sure he thought the same thing. Something else added to this dangerous mix. David Walberg had just become the editor-in-chief at Xtra magazine. Remember him? Well, not considering him talented enough for Fourplay might have been a mistake. As soon as he took over, Xtra started openly attacking me. They had never really

235

backed us when we were attacked by the religious right, but they also never printed nasty gossip about me. But around the time of our move, an unsigned gossip column in Xtra suddenly appeared, saying that I was fat and boring — the two things I probably fear most in life! They also trashed my drag and said I was ugly. Later, I wrote David Walberg a letter, and said I was going to quit drag for a while, which I did because I was so hurt. He didn't seem to give a shit. David was a good friend of Tims. I couldn't get over it. I would bring articles like that to Tim and the board, and they'd say, "Get over it, Sky. Why are you being so sensitive? You'll have to develop a thicker skin. After all, you're the artistic director of a big theatre now." They were right, of course. I was beginning to think that I wasn't cut out to be a big-time artistic director. Not if this was what it was going to be like. If I'd shown Sue the hurtful article she would have said, "Ignore them. First of all, you're sexy as hell. And second, you're brilliant!" That worked a lot better than, "Get over it, you're being sensitive." After the move, pressure mounted on all sides. Instead of feeling protected and supported, I felt alone and attacked on every front. The attitude of the mainstream media also changed after the move. Initially, they were obsessed with our deficit — which, of course, rose after all the renovation money was spent. It all started back with the $2 million nobody could stop talking about. Every article about the company was framed the same way: "Will they make it? Will this little company be able to handle the big move? Can Buddies' little plays fill a 35O-seat theatre?" As time went by, Xtra sent investigative reporters to the theatre to research our finances. Now, I can't say they were picking on us — digging up dirt on gay organizations is an Xtra editorial policy. I'm not sure why they do it. Of course, they would say that their investigative reporters just try to make sure that gay organizations are run fairly. But what Xtra never seems to understand is that most gay organizations are staffed and run by volunteers and operated as non-profit ventures. They don't have money and they're perpetually on the verge of bankruptcy. Perhaps the reason Xtra doesn't understand this is that they're a profit-making organization that's subsidized by a phone-sex operation. Buddies was financially unstable after we moved into the new theatre, but the instability was the result of never being granted enough funds to effectively

run a theatre. Tim and I met with the arts councils soon after we opened. They said, "Sorry, there's no more money." We begged the 12 Alexander Street Selection Committee to help us raise more, but they weren't much help. At times it seemed everyone wanted us to fail. When we tried to explain this to Xtra, they wouldn't listen. In their articles, they would compare us to commercial producers like Follows and Latimer, who produced trash like Forever Plaid. "But they're a business, "we would say, "and were an arts organization. " Our explanations fell on deaf ears. Finally, Xtra trashed Tim mercilessly, claiming he was mismanaging the company. This happened just before he left. It may, in fact, have been things like this that ultimately forced him out. Anyway, I have to admit that I gloated a bit when he ran into my office and said, "Can you believe David Walberg sanctioned this?" I said, "Xtra said I was fat and boring, and you told me to take it like a man. Now do you know how it feels?" As for the straight press, I couldn't get them to talk about the art at all after we moved in. They'd call me up and say that they were doing an article. I'd start to talk about the shows, and they'd say, "What about that deficit . . . ?" It all seemed like a conspiracy. In fact, the Mollywood crowd weren't the only ones who reminded me of the Little Red Hen. It seemed like the whole city — gay, straight, even the disabled — was after us. Just before we opened the building, for instance, Tim rushed into the office and said, "The disabled are going to be picketing us." "What are you talking about?" I asked. After all, we had spent lots of time with the architects, Martin and Myrna, negotiating ways to make the building wheelchair accessible. "They say the building won't be wheelchair accessible." "But did you tell them that it will be?" "Of course, but they don't believe me, and they're picketing anyway!" That was symptomatic of the treatment we'd get. People would get mad, anticipating that we were going to do something horrible, even before we managed to not do it. The straight community was especially miffed. Because there were all the blazing headlines about a gay and lesbian theatre company (a "sex club") getting a "huge" amount of government money, people came by to test us out. Were we really serving the whole community? Did we deserve the big bucks?

237

We had a visit from a straight agent who represented a bunch of American comedians, for example. (God knows how he found out about us. I guess he was just doing his job.) It's true that Buddies had somewhat of a reputation for promoting gay and lesbian comedians. One of the elements of Queerculture that wasn't discussed during the "scandal" was the queer comedians. We offered an opportunity for Canadians like Elvira Kurt, Jonathan Wilson, and Savoy Howe, as well as Americans like Lea DeLaria and Maggie Cassella, to test their chops before an adoring crowd. (Maggie Cassella went on to produce a gay and lesbian comedy festival called We're Funny That Way at the new Buddies. It was quite successful, mixing Canadian and American talent.) At first, Jonathan Wilson and Elvira Kurt were quite frightened about doing gay and lesbian stuff; they were fresh from Second City, and they told me frankly that it wasn't always pleasant being the only out queers in the company. Sonja Mills (author of Dyke City) was also a mean comic. These performances had become a favourite part of Queerculture, But we were an avant-garde theatre, and we weren't developing comedians in general. We were committed, however, to developing disadvantaged comedians — those limp-wristed guys and toughtalking gals who were not going to get a gig on the Comedy Network because of the content of their work. Well, I guess the straight agent must have heard about us through Lea DeLaria or Maggie. He was an odd duck, and he came into my office with a chip on his shoulder. He asked me if we would program an evening of his comedians at Tallulah's, connected with some sort of HBO deal. (There was no money in it for us, or I might have acted differently. Maybe not, though.) I asked him if they were gay comedians. "Why, do they have to be?" he asked. I said, "This is a gay and lesbian theatre. We do avant-garde and queer work, and we don't usually feature comedians. But now, especially because we have the cabaret, we encourage queer comedians since a lot of them can't get straight gigs." He looked at me. "Just a minute. Are you saying that you have to be gay to work here?" "No, I'm not saying that," I said. "We have lots of straight theatre artists working here. It's just that it's not really our mandate to produce comedy, unless it's queer or on the edge or feminist or something. Do you have any women comics?" "I think there's one," he said.

Oh my God, all I could imagine was a bunch of fags and dykes and avant-garde theatre types — our usual audience — sitting down and watching some jock get up and quip, "Fuck, my wife was having her period, so I told her to take her tampon and stuff it! Ha ha." Something like that. Especially since, soon after we opened the theatre, Kirsten Johnson (who was curating the walls of Tallulah's as a gallery) had programmed some pretty inyour-face "menstrual art." No, it would've been a nightmare. Straight male comics are invariably homophobic. Unless they're some weird lefty or a minority. Anyway, I just said no. He was very pushy and very angry. He left and complained to someone at Equity. As I've told you before, Equity never liked us much, so they went and told the newspapers. And sure enough, the Star printed a big article that told people we weren't allowing straights to perform at our theatre. We had to write letters to correct their misinformation. As this was happening, the Augusta Company was doing a show. And they were all straight. But the Star wasn't interested in these truthful details; gossip, innuendo, and trashing the new queer theatre were the order of the day. As you can see, there were tensions between gay and straight at the new space. A lot of it focused on the bar. In fact, a good deal of the tension over the new building focused on the bar. And it was the flashpoint for many arguments between Tim and me. If Sue's big focus had been on ensuring that Buddies stayed queer and sexual, my big focus became making sure that Buddies remained a theatre. I was devoted to our Dungeon parties, but suddenly, in the new space, every night was a Dungeon! Of course that's an exaggeration. A gross exaggeration, actually. But we quicldy discovered that the bar was a huge money-making proposition. Tim was absolutely right in his prediction: it was going to keep the theatre alive financially. My idea had been that we would have to run a bar, which would take time and energy, but the reward would be that we wouldn't have to demand huge rental fees from companies using the Chamber. The bar would directly subsidize avant-garde work. Most of the companies we wanted to see using the Chamber couldn't pay much rent. When we moved into the theatre we formed a Programming Advisory Committee that was made up of some members of the original Edge committee, including Daniel Brooks and

239

Hillar Liitoja (Hillar dropped out soon after we opened). Later, it included people like Sarah Stanley, Nadia Ross, Soheil Parsa, and Colin Taylor as well as my associates, Kirsten and Moynan. These people, along with myself, programmed the space outside of Buddies' 13 weeks. The companies we encouraged were avant-garde or they were doing new Canadian work — and they didn't have much money. So the concept of the new theatre was very dependent on the money that quickly started to roll in from the bar nights on Friday and Saturday. This dependence caused more tension. For instance, the set-up for the bar nights began to get earlier and earlier, and sometimes interfered with performances. We had weekly staff meetings, and if I challenged the bar staff on this, they would form a phalanx and say, "Sorry, we have to set up early." This made me furious. Often, Tim would back them up. (Maybe he was just being a neutral mediator, I don't know, but it didn't seem that way to me at the time.) Most of the people who went to the bar were queer, and a lot of them didn't even know Buddies was a theatre. At one point, on Saturday, we started to perform bits from plays at midnight in Tallulah's. But that interrupted the party and the bar sales. Anyway, I was very sensitive about the bar starting to run the theatre, rather than it operating the other way around. This never actually happened when I was there, but it always seemed an imminent danger. All of this wasn't just paranoia. I heard rumours from the straight theatre community that they didn't feel comfortable in Tallulah's. The rumour was that our bar had become a "gay" bar. And that that was a bad diing. I thought it was all very interesting, politically. What was happening at the theatre was that Tallulah's had somehow become "gay" territory while the Chamber itself was "straight." Well, I shouldn't say "somehow" because it's clear how that happened. The parties in Tallulah's on Friday and Saturday nights were very queer. The patrons were queer, the bar staff was very queer. One of my favourite employees was Pat Wilson, a male-to-female transsexual. She's a very wry, sexy character, full of worldly wisdom, but she has an outrageously queer presence, and she's aware of that. We all love Pat (as I'm writing this, she still works there) but I wouldn't be surprised if she scared a lot of straight people off. I remember a Rhubarb! piece that satirized the Buddies staff with a line like "You've got to wear police boots and have a shaved head to work here!" The satire was apt. There did seem to be a post-skinheadchic dress code. But what could we do about it? In the late '8os, when Gwen

and Tim and I formed our personal styles, it was hip to look that way. Anyway, Tallulah's was staffed by very queer people who looked the part. The Friday night parties were more lesbian, while Saturdays were more gay. But both were mixed, and that was the great thing. You were in a "lesbian" space on Fridays, but gays and straights were there too. Sometimes I'd walk into the cabaret and just stand there looking at the crowd. I was very inspired. It was just the way Sue and I had imagined — a mix you couldn't find anywhere else in Toronto. I think diat mix has always accounted for the bar's popularity. On Fridays we had a lesbian DJ. On Saturdays some drag queens performed. Sometimes our Goth dominatrix bartender, Marlene, would get some of her friends to come in and lip-synch. On Easter, an S/M guy crucified himself. Often, it got very theatrical. I have no doubt that some of the straight people who walked into the bar found themselves in an alien environment. So what? Jesus, we queers spend our lives in an alien environment. Couldn't straight people try and walk in our shoes for a minute or two? The Tallulah's problem reared its ugly head in the very first season during Tesla, a play by David Fraser that was directed by Colin Taylor. This was particularly interesting because I don't think there was a single gay person working on that production. (Okay, there might have been one.) I noticed that all the little Tesla actors were scurrying home, faces averted as they rushed by Tallulah's to the front door. I asked someone involved with the show about it and I received an interesting answer: "Oh, the Tesla people don't really feel comfortable there." That really upset me. Tallulah's was becoming a little queer island inside a gay and lesbian theatre. Strange how pervasive homophobia can be. Of course, what really bothered people about Tallulah's was not that it was queer, but that it was sexual. I think this ultimately affected the work that we did at Buddies. There were interesting professional experimental artists who never approached us for space. Outside of cranky straight comedians from the USA, I can't sa there were a lot of straight performer types knocking down our doors to perform. Sometimes the Programming Advisory Committee had to search hard and long for interesting avant-garde work to program. I'm sure that the presence of our very queer cabaret kept some people away. There was another group of people putting a lot of pressure on me: gay male

241

writers. Before we moved into the theatre, it seemed that lesbians were dissatisfied. Sue Golding and Moynan King helped a lot with that because they were both able to reach into the lesbian community. Moynan turned Strange Sisters into one of the most exciting events at the new Buddies. She was especially good at reaching out to artists of colour. But when we got to 12 Alexander Street, I was suddenly being pressured to program more plays by gay men from the community. By this I mean amateur plays. In a way, it made sense. We were a gay and lesbian theatre, after all. But we were a professional theatre, and it wasn't our mandate to stage amateur productions. Again, I thought it was the Little Red Hen syndrome. A lot of these guys weren't too interested when we were a litde no-account theatre on George Street, but suddenly, when we got the bigger theatre, they were banging down our door. To be fair, it was partially our fault. In the fundraising publicity for the move, we had said, "It's your space. In YOUR community." I had been opposed to the description; it's not tliat I didn't think Buddies would serve the community, but I didn't want people to think that Buddies was at the service of the community. We weren't a community service — we were a professional theatre. So there were lots of gay men who saw that publicity and said to themselves, "They say it's our theatre. So they'd better put on my play. What did they get all that money for, anyway? I hope it's not just to pay for fat old Sky Gilbert's dinner!" This may sound exaggerated, but I think it's typical of some of the prevailing attitudes at the time. JeffKirby typified this movement. Remember him? He had been my therapist as well as a participant in two Rhubarbls during the '8os. I hadn't kept in touch after he helped me through my breakdown, but he turned up as soon as the theatre opened. He wanted us to produce a play. I read it, and decided that it wasn't ready — that it should go through the Fourplay process of development. I don't think he was very pleased. Like the Mollywood guys, he wanted results right away. None of this "development" shit. Anyway, he appeared to accept my decision, and then he said, "Oh, by the way, I want to do a reading in Tallulah's. Would that be okay?" At the time we had decided to make the cabaret, when it was available, accessible to all community groups and Canadian artists for free. Later, we had to charge something, because we were losing so much money. But when we opened the theatre, we thought that the least we could do was give back to the community by offering free space in Tallu-

lah's. I said sure, and he dropped off a poster for die reading a week later. The poster was very provocative, nothing but images of erect cocks cut from a porn magazine. (I thought it was ugly.) Keep in mind we had just moved into a new theatre, which, as the press kept reminding us, cost $2 million of public money. We had billed ourselves as a "civic" space. We had just survived a huge scandal over our S/M parties. So I took Kirby's poster to the Buddies board, and we had a long discussion about it. We didn't want to censor Jeff, and we certainly didn't want to censor sexual images, but we didn't want to get embroiled in a huge scandal over a poster for one reading. We wouldn't cut words from a play, we reasoned, but this was different. This was visual "art," and we're not an art gallery. A visual image like this on the street is going to cause incredible trouble. We asked him to change the poster. We decided board member Shannon Bell should call him because she was the only board member who actually liked the poster. All those dicks appealed to her. Shannon is a very attractive bisexual woman. She revels in her dyed bluntcut hair, crazy girlish energy, and micro-mini PVC skirts — but she's also th most articulate pro-sexual intellectual I've ever met, outside of Sue Golding. Jeff was furious. He immediately cancelled his reading, crying censorship. He was right, we were censoring his poster, but we had hoped he would understand the circumstances. He didn't, and went around town giving interviews saying that Buddies had changed. We weren't radical anymore, we weren't sex-positive. We were stodgy and conservative. "You know all those posters saying, 'It's your theatre'? Well, it's not my theatre." I was deeply hurt. Jeff was right to feel bad, but I had thought there was a bond between us. Here was my ex-therapist, for chrissakes! Now he was campaigning against me! Better than anyone, he knew that when you attacked Buddies, you attacked me. All of this was incredibly ironic — Jeff was the guy who convinced me that I should get a life outside Buddies. There I was, neurotically obsessing about the company (just like before my breakdown), and he was one of the main causes of my anxiety! It hurt me when my ex-therapist savaged me in public. Worse, though, was his distortion of the facts. What he neglected to tell people was that Buddies had a history of censoring his posters. We censored him back in 1989, for exactly the same reason. Jeff's play Bob Smith Sucks Cocks was in Rhubarb!. The image for the poster was — you guessed it — a close-up porn shot of a

243

guy giving a blowjob. At the time, we were performing Rhubarb! at the Annex Theatre, which was also the home of Theatre Direct, a young people's company. Teenagers were coming in there all the time. We asked Jeff to put a red dot over the offending part of the close-up, and he did. So, in actual fact, Buddies hadn't changed at all. Jeff manipulated the situation to get some press out of something that was very fashionable at the time: trashing Buddies. But was there some truth in what he was saying? Had Buddies changed? As you can see, I was caught in a veritable maelstrom of demands. We had disabled people picketing for a ramp that was already being built, crazed straight comedians giving interviews to the paper saying that we didn't allow straight artists to work at the theatre, and straight artists who isfe/work at the theatre complaining that the bar was too gay. Then we had Jeff Kirby and his ilk complaining that we weren't gay enough. I thought I was gonna go nuts. Rhubarb! and Fourplay were a bit of a respite from this terror. But in the spring of 1995, we decided to retire Queerculture. Why? We reasoned that the whole building was queer; we had queer art and queer artists in the cabaret all the time. We were Queerculture. What did we need with a special festival? Still, this troubled me. I was soothed by some of the Fourplay productions — R.M. Vaughan's beautiful Cities of the Plain, for one. I had introduced R.M. to Franco Boni, and for a while it was a professional match made in heaven. Cities was a poetic journey through the life and work of Proust. I think the one or two "sweater fags" who came to see the play were confused by it. But I loved it. Sonja Mills' hilarious comedy, 101 Things Lesbians Do in Bed, wasn't quite the hit it was supposed to be, but it was a great show. Moynan King directed Mark Johnson in a poetic performance piece where he hung upside down by one foot. And Sarah Stanley, a dyke director who had done some wonderful work with her and Patrick Connor's little company, Die In Debt — the Greek tragedy under a bridge they did had caught my eye — wrote her own play about dykes and fags and washroom sex. The work cheered me, but no one came. That spring we also decided to discontinue the Fourplay festival. We reasoned that the queers in the community weren't coming to Buddies the way

they were supposed to — they were still going to opera and baseball games instead. We understood that they now had gay and lesbian movies to see, so why stress that the plays were gay? Why not just put on plays? I wasn't really comfortable with the reasoning, but it seemed to be the only thing to do at the time. Deep down, however, I began to agree with Jeff. If we stopped calling it Fourplay and we stopped having Queerculture, weren't we becoming less queer? Was I bowing to the pressure from all the straights? Or was it just that people hated me? Xtra certainly seemed to hate me. Once, that first spring, some crazy fag ran into the lobby and started yelling about me. He finally threw a penny on the floor and said, "This is for Sky Gilbert!" It didn't make much sense, but it didn't seem positive. On top of everything, Ken McDougall died in the spring of 1995. It was very upsetting for all of us at Buddies. For me, it was particularly difficult, because although we had stopped being close friends years earlier, Hillar Liitoja had cast me in a play called The Last Supper with Ken the previous fall. The circumstances surrounding this play were very bizarre, and some of it is still a mystery to me. It was a very strange case of art mixing with life. At certain points in the experience I wasn't even sure where life ended and art began. Which was appropriate, because when we moved to 12 Alexander, those distinctions had all but disappeared for me. Hillar holds the key, and he's not talking. I've never asked him to tell me the truth about that time — perhaps it's because I don't want to know. Hillar asked me if I wanted to be in a play called The Last Supper. As I remember, there was no script. Still, I trusted Hillar implicitly. The idea fascinated me. He wanted to do a play that was ostensibly about euthanasia. I think this was one of the reasons why the piece proved popular; most of Hillar's work could not be boiled down to a single issue. In fact, I would say that's the distinction between commercial and non-commercial art. The theme of a commercial play can be boiled down to a sentence. That's what Hollywood movies are all about. A work of art cannot be distilled into an issue, so people don't know how to describe it or what to tell their friends. With my work, it's a case of people not knowing what it's about, and when they actually figure it out, they're so horrified that they daren't tell a soul. The plot of The Last Supper involved a man with AIDS carefully orchestrating the last moments of his death. There were three characters: the dying

245

man, his lover, and a doctor. I was to play the doctor. During this time I was under so much stress that I was just happy that I didn't have to be onstage very long. Hillar told me that I entered, said my speech, and then left. When we finally got to the text I discovered my monologue was six pages long. So much for my fantasy about doing a cameo role. You see, I've always had a love/hate relationship with acting. It's fun to rehearse, and I enjoy opening night. But I find performing over and over a trial. I think that means I don't have an actor's nature. Still, I have a kind of peculiar talent that seems to get me cast. Most of the acting I've done in my career has happened because somebody asked me to do it, because someone particularly wanted me. It would be nice if I liked acting more. But, because I'm a writer, I resent the endless emotional impositions. I resent the stolen emotional time. Why should I put my finest, deepest moments on display? Because, in my view, there's no point in acting unless you bring the audience your finest, deepest moments. Then there's working for Hillar. He's endlessly frustrating. First, you have to wait for him to get an idea. And then when he gets it, he jumps up and down and screams with delight. Then you do it. And he hates it. And you have to wait for him to think again. Because he likes to feel your presence when he's thinking. He's a control freak. Its absolutely infuriating. But when he likes what you do, he goes nuts with pleasure. And because he's brilliant, you know it's just right. I think I did it partially because I loved Hillar's work and I loved the idea. And there's nothing like a six-page speech to get the ham in any actor excited. But the strange thing about this production was that the person playing the dying man was very sick. The person who was supposed to be dying of AIDS in the play, Ken McDougall, was, in fact, dying of AIDS. I didn't know this at the time. I know you might find that hard to believe. If I had known that Ken was dying during that play, I don't know if I would have been able to perform. Ken told me that he had contracted a parasite in Mexico. He'd had it for an awfully long time, and I was suspicious. But I certainly wasn't going to ask him about it — he was the type of person with whom you didn't discuss such things. Remember the anecdote about the door? I was the open, melodramatic, emotional one. Ken was very Joe Friday: "Just the facts, ma'am." And he told me the facts. That he had a parasite. I knew he didn't want to

get into his emotions, so I wasn't going to question him about them. If people don't want to talk about their disease, why coerce them? I never knew if Hillar was aware that Ken was dying. I never asked anyone. I didn't want to know. I think one of the reasons was that it would seem a bit like exploitation. A dying man playing a dying man? Isn't that kind of like having sex with a child? Or is it wrong to assume that someone who's dying doesn't have the ability to decide whether they want to be in a play or not? For all these reasons, I never dealt with the issue during the rehearsals. I treated Ken as Ken. He was always very talented, funny, and infuriating. He was opinionated and stubborn, and so was I. We had one enormous fight during the show. Ken spent most of his time during rehearsals in the bed, because he was very weak. I stomped out in a rage. (It was my usual thing at the time — I was always at the end of my rope!) I was off in the corner of the backspace at Passe Muraille, sulking somewhere, and I could hear Ken shouting from his bed, "You selfish, egotistical prick! Will you get up here and rehearse?" Eventually, I did. I think the play was effective, but it's hard to tell. People treat AIDS plays with enormous reverence, even when they're a load of crap. But I don't think this was that kind of thing. This was Hillar's version of naturalism. His usual style was an abstracted kind of dance/theatre, full of music and gesture. When he tried naturalism, he did it in real time. It became dance because it was so tedious and exacting. But the detail, I'm sure, was fascinating. Ken's character had his "last supper," his last meal, with his lover. They ate real food and Ken finished what he could. The character watched his favourite videotape, and the audience watched it with him: a whole half-hour tape. It was just as if you were in the room. My detailed speech about the mechanics of euthanasia was to be delivered without emotion, extremely slowly. It was very difficult. I was afraid the audience would be bored. Instead, it ended up being pretty creepy. The only time that I really thought that maybe Ken was really dying was when he missed a rehearsal because he had to have a blood transfusion. I remember waiting somewhat testily in a corner of the dressing room at Passe Muraille the next day, only to have Ken glide in quietly. "Where were you yesterday, anyway?" I asked. "Oh," he answered, offhandedly. "I had to get a blood transfusion." That shut me up. I remember thinking, fuck, that's serious. But I still didn't want to believe it was AIDS.

247

When the play was over, Ken became very ill. It was almost as if once the play was over it was time for him to die. Then I discovered for sure, though I don't know how, that he had AIDS. I visited him a few times at his house, and he was going through the agony of deciding which drugs to take. He was very afraid of the cytomegalovirus which so commonly accompanies HIV — it can lead to blindness. But there were side effects to the anti-CMV drugs. When there was a bed for him at Casey House, Daniel Maclvor and I went to visit. Of course we dreaded it. At least I did. Let's be honest here. Does anyone want to see a dear friend in that state? When we got to Casey House, I felt so sorry for Ken. I knew he was there because he didn't have much family, or a lover. Sure there were ex-lovers, but most were no longer part of Ken's life. Mostly his theatre friends visited him. I think he was even a little in love with Daniel. But all he ever really had was his work. We talked with him about ordinary things, as if life was going to be going on for all of us. When Daniel and I left we didn't know what to say to each other. That was the last time I saw Ken. But it needn't have been. The day after the Casey House visit, I got a call from Hillar asking me if I wanted to be in the film version of The Last Supper. I couldn't believe what he was asking me. "But Ken is almost dead," I said. "How can he be in a film?" "Well, maybe this film will keep him alive a little longer," said Hillar. "That's why we have to do it right now, while he still has the strength." When he said this, I was horrified. Rushing to make a film before someone dies? Just to get him on film in his last moments? Now it really seemed exploitative. When we did the play, I had been able to fool myself into thinking that Ken wasn't dying. Now I knew he was dying. I said no, I couldn't do it. Daniel Maclvor did the role instead. I've heard that he, and the film, are quite wonderful. I've never been able to watch it, and I don't think I ever will. I think I was wrong not to do the film. I was being cowardly, using the excuse of exploitation to mask my own fear. Really I was terrified of being that close to a dying person — to a dying person I once loved very dearly. Because it wasn't Ken, really. He was becoming something else. I'm glad Hillar made the movie. It probably kept Ken alive. When he was working, doing his favourite thing, he didn't have to think about dying. And he was with Daniel. It really was for the best.

I think Ken's death made me think about my own life. (Isn't that what always happens?) And how much it revolved around my work. While all this was happening, something strange occurred widi Daniel Maclvor. He started pursuing me as a friend. I think that if this had happened when I was a feeling a little more stable, I might not have responded. Daniel was a work friend, more of an acquaintance; I never thought we had much in common outside of our work. But the stress of 12 Alexander and Ken's death had mixed everything up. If you've ever been pursued by Daniel as a friend or lover (or anything!) you would understand what an incredible thing it is. Daniel is utterly charming and intelligent. He's very hard to resist. It's as if he's shining a very bright light on you. If you've seen him onstage or in the movies, you've seen some of that charm. It's what makes him so easy to watch. And it's not that he's that handsome really. Just very appealing. He looks a bit like a young James Stewart — slender and rumpled — with very straight light hair and weathered skin. He's deftly masculine, with an easygoing air. I was very surprised when he reached out. Daniel and I were never more than professional associates. I figured he was intimidated by me at first. But now he was beginning to surpass me in terms of success, so the intimidation was going away. I was jealous of his quick climb to the top, of course, but happy, too. Daniel was my biggest success story — if you measure success by how famous a person gets. I was instrumental in his career, and he has become a very popular theatre person. Ken first directed him in Two-ToTango before Ken became ill. Then there was Never Swim Alone, Daniel's big hit — all about men and competition. I thought it was a great play, mainly because the subject was very personal to Daniel: his competitive relationship with Ken. They were always incredibly jealous of each other. That's one of Daniel's things. When he hasn't seen you for a while, he sits you down and says, "Okay, what's up? What've you been doing? Tell me everything." And then you do and sometimes you feel a little empty. As if Daniel now owns everything that you are and everything that you've done. Later in our relationship, when Daniel would try this on me, I would refuse to respond. I felt like I was making a list of my achievements. "So, who're you seeing? Who's the boyfriend? What's up? Tell, tell, tell." Anyway, after Never Swim Alone Daniel Maclvor started to team up with

249

Daniel Brooks. At that point I stopped being able to analyze his work. Both Daniels are so talented, and their talents fit together so well that you can't separate their contributions. Here Lies Henry, which was performed at Buddies, is a good example. It's so seamless you can't tell who did what. Daniel B is effectively the director and Daniel M is the writer/actor. But Daniel B also does some writing. This is something that he often doesn't give himself enough credit for. Daniel B hides his light under a bushel. (Not Daniel M.) Daniel B is also an actor, with his own style — which I sometimes see reflected in Daniel Ms acting. You see what I mean? I think they're a perfect team, and the work they make together is profound. But they're so symbiotic that I'm never going to figure out who should get credit for what. This explosion of talent between the two of them surprised everyone when it first happened. And it made Ken angry. That's why I'm glad Daniel worked with Ken at the end. Before Ken died, Daniel Maclvor started trying to be my friend. He was the star of my movie My Addiction, which was playing at the Castro Cinema as part of the San Francisco Gay and Lesbian Film Festival in the summer of 1994, so we took a trip to San Francisco together. We had an enormous amount of fun (it's always fun with Daniel). We both found boys to follow us around. It was competitive, but we each held our own. I was very lonely and much too obsessed with the opening of the theatre to analyze our relationship. I just enjoyed the ride. The summer after Ken died, we went to Provincetown together. R.M. Vaughan was surprised by our friendship. R.M. was the bosom buddy, the confidant. Listening was never Maclvor's big thing, and it's not mine. Two non-listeners can have fun together, but it's hard for them to be really close. Anyway, my friendship with Daniel would take a weird turn in 1996 — but we're riot there yet. First came my fall 1995 production of Jim Dandy. It starred Ann Holloway, Hugo Dann, Peter Lynch, Michael McMurtry, Brendan Wall, and Balazs Koos. Like An Investigation into the Strange Case of the Wildboy, it was one of my rude ejaculations. I remember that when I told Tim Jones about it, he looked at me very strangely. Tim always supported my work, but I'm pretty sure he thought I was taking a wrong turn on this one. Jim Dandy is one of the most alienating things I've ever written, but also one of the runniest. It's hard to describe. At first I wanted to write another play about Andy Warhol. But then I decided

to write about "dandies" in general, and especially the dandified (and usually but not always faggot), artist, in which the dandy's life is as much a creation as his art. The narrator of the play — Jim Dandy — first portrays Oscar Wilde, then Andy Warhol. Then he morphs into two Toronto performance artists: Darren O'Donnell and Death Waits. Talk about self-reflexive art about artists speaking only to its own community! This play took the cake. Interspersed with the monologues were very naturalistic scenes that were all Jim Dandy creations, inspired by the movies I was making at the time. One is a scene with a crazy hooker and his drag queen boyfriend, another is a nutty encounter between a Muslim hooker and an older man at the baths, and the third is a scene in which a mother flirts dangerously with her hunky teenage son. The play opened with one of the hookers taking a shit. To top it all off, the scenes were played way down in the pit and the audience had to stare down at them. Gwen almost killed me, because this was the first time the whole pit had been used. It was an enormous amount of work, but, to her credit, she pulled it off. Well, if I had purposely set out to alienate the whole gay community with a play, I couldn't have chosen a better piece to do. Of course, no one came to see it. I was incredibly depressed. I hadn't learned the lesson that I chastised Ken Gass for so early in my career. Here I was, wondering why the gay community hated my work — when I had deliberately written a shocking, boring, disgusting play. But I really liked Jim Dandy. Theresa Przybylski was the designer, and Franco Boni was my assistant director, as he was for More Divine. I was beginning to depend on Franco as my other eye. (He was also directing many plays by R.M. Vaughan at Buddies, and doing a great job bringing R.M.'s poetic work to theatrical life.) But never had I felt more distanced from my audience. I felt so irresponsible for having followed my dream with Jim Dandy. I knew that I had a responsibility to put bums in seats. But — call me crazy — I thought the show was good. Could I help it if middle-class gay men didn't care for it? It was around that time that I started seeing another therapist. I'll just say that she was great. I could see major anxiety ahead, and I was going to blow. I was feeling

asr

exactly the way I had before my first breakdown, and I was living the same way — getting very drunk and being promiscuous, burying myself in my work. For months and months my therapist and I went over all my problems. We thought we'd solved a lot of them. But I was still anxious. What gradually became clear to me was that the only problem in my life that I hadn't solved was my relationship to Buddies. Then Sue Golding provided the catalyst for Tim's decision to leave the company, and, ultimately, for mine. In the fall of 1995 Sue asked us to come to London. The following summer there was going to be a London Pride theatre festival to accompany the march. Sue was on the Pride Committee, and she said she'd have no problem pulling some strings to get Buddies some performances there. Tim was immediately excited. We would have a UK tour. All I had to do was come up with a play. I decided to work on a piece with Daniel Brooks and Daniel Maclvor. I loved Maclvor's acting, and Brooks had been a sometime dramaturge for me. He made suggestions that helped me make the mother/son scene in Jim Dandy more dangerous. Brooks would dramaturge, perhaps direct, Daniel would act, and I would write. We had some preliminary meetings and I had written some scenes around the tide Six Ways To Say Goodbye. The conceit of the play was that it was an extended contemplation on goodbye, in six different theatrical styles. That was the plan. Sue and Tim worked on the tour. The spring came and went, and I noticed that I was having a hard time getting the two Daniels together for a meeting. That spring at Buddies was a terrible one. Our idea to cancel Fourplay and produce four gay and lesbian plays — without accenting the gay/lesbian aspect — was a huge flop. And Tim and I were fighting like crazy. Maybe I should explain. I think, finally, Tim became the lightning rod for all my anger around Buddies. After all, he was my link to the harsh realities of the outside world. He was, in essence, the messenger, and I was constantly shooting him down. When there wasn't enough money, or I had to deal with staff problems or Tallulah's problems or complaints from the neighbours about noise, it was Tim who would speak to me. By 1996, it just seemed that the gay community wasn't very interested in my work. And on top of that, no one came to see the four queer plays we staged that spring. The only successes

we'd had that season were The Martha. Stewart Projects — which was a wonderful, Rhubarblish compendium of short plays, skits, and operettas on the theme of Martha Stewart's middle-class mania — and Maclvor's Here Lies Henry, But these were not very queer projects, and not Buddies projects. Around this time, we were also having serious financial problems. Xtra was trashing Tim and hounding him for interviews about our financial situation. Board meetings were hell. Tori Smith and Ed seemed obsessed. Every board meeting they wanted to talk about one subject only: "Sky, don't you think we'd better settle what will happen if you want to quit?" I found this very disconcerting. Sue had always treated me like a permanent fixture. When we moved to the new space, she had insisted that we put it in the mandate that Buddies would always produce "the plays of Sky Gilbert." Around this time Xtra published the mandate and questioned that part of it. I know that Ed and Torrie were just trying to give me job security, but in my frustration and paranoia, it seemed like they were trying to get me to discuss quitting my job. I couldn't imagine ever leaving Buddies. I think I said something like, "They'll have to kill me first," to Gwen at the time. I was pretty nuts. All through this, Tim and I were bickering savagely over every little thing. I complained endlessly to R.M. and Franco about him, and I turned Franco bitterly against him. Looking back on it, I think I was unfair to Tim. Or maybe we were both just caught up in a terrible situation. Tim was under enormous pressure from other quarters, too. There were serious problems widi our 1994—1995 audit. Tim was not getting along with our auditors. I didn't think about it much at the time, because he told me the auditors were being unreasonable. In the spring of 1995, they had asked to visit a board meeting. I think they were going to tell us that we were in serious financial trouble, that our deficit was getting out of hand. Well, Tim made it sound like they were being melodramatic, so they didn't come to our board meeting. Then, all during the winter of 1995—1996, the auditors searched through our files. Tim even set up a special office for them. It was a very strange situation. I barely knew these guys, and yet they now had a little office near mine. I'll have to say, though, that from the minimal contact I had with them, I found them off-putting. Mainly because they would never speak to me. I guess they wanted to speak officially, at the board meeting, and since they hadn't had that chance, they were going to stay closemouthed. Because Tim and the auditors were not getting along, I did

2S3

everything I could to make contact and help them. But it was to absolutely no avail. They were doing their audit in the theatre, so I would stop them now and then and say, "How's it going?" "Terrible, terrible. We can't find the documentation we need." "Have you asked Tim?" "Tim can't find it either." "Well, listen, if there's anything I can do to help," I'd say, "you tell me. I know you need that documentation." Then I'd hear nothing from them. I felt like the mayor of that Iowa town in The Music Man, always chasing Robert Preston around town, looking for his credentials. I thought, if these auditors are trying to help us, then they're sure going about it in a strange way. Finally, they just gave up, I guess. I didn't really know how serious it all was until the summer, when they wouldn't give us their seal of approval on our budget because the deficit was too big. They thought we should close the company. I confronted Tim, and he claimed they were being hysterical. He told me they had said the same thing to Caribana. He told me he would lobby Kyle Rae to help us out. You see, when Tim was lobbying to get us the new space, he had come to depend on Kyle Rae. This was a big mistake. I know now, from watching Kyle, that he is able to control people by making backroom deals. He's Toronto's first openly gay city councillor, but instead of laying his gay principles out in the open and fighting for them, he likes to make deals quietly, behind the scenes. This means that he doesn't have to take a public stand on principle, which is always scary for politicians. To be fair, I'm sure that to some extent this is the way politics work in general. But it shouldn't be. With his backroom deals, Kyle gets people to depend on him. Then, when he removes his support, his dependants are totally screwed. When we moved into 12, Alexander, Kyle was behind us. But, as we continued to do avant-garde work, something happened. It's as if he hadn't understood anything about the theatre, or what we were doing. As if he hadn't heard Tim say that we were completely underfunded. By the spring of 1995, Kyle would no longer defend Buddies against attacks. And he didn't seem to know how to defend us on principle. His defence should have been: "This is an important cultural laboratory. Look at the artists this theatre has created. Mike Harris' severely underfunded arts council is crippling this company. They need more operating money from the city." Instead of doing that,

he would now and then figure out a way to get the city to extend a deadline, or waive our City Tax. That was one of the biggest problems: we had been quoted the wrong City Tax estimates when we moved into the space. When we found out we were being taxed the same amount as The New Yorker Theatre — a commercial theatre — Tim and I were outraged and tried to change it. Kyle tried to help for a while, but by the spring of 1996, he wasn't even lobbying for the little favours that would help us get by. He seemed to have deserted us. And we needed him desperately. Kyle left Tim in the lurch, and all our financial problems suddenly loomed before us, unsolvable. I don't think it's Tim's fault; he wasn't naive, depending on Kyle Rae. Kyle had made sure that he did. By the time we went on tour, the auditors and Kyle were not on Tim's side. And we were in so much financial trouble that Gwen, Tim, and I had to decrease our monthly salaries. Eventually, we had to lay off some staff. It was very painful for us all. Around the same time that this was going on, the two Daniels left me in the lurch. It happened like this: Maclvor knew that we were going on the tour to London, because he was going to be in my play, and he asked me if it would be okay if he and Brooks applied for money from External Affairs to bring Here Lies Henry along. After all, the touring company consisted of me, him, Brooks and a stage manager. We could probably share a stage manager. I asked Tim if that was okay and he said it was. I asked Sue, too. Everyone seemed to think it was a good arrangement. Daniel Maclvor could act in both plays and then take Here Lies Henry to the Edinburgh Festival. Sure. Everything seemed hunky-dory. But as soon as Maclvor applied for the grant and we arranged to take the two plays to London, he dropped out of my play. And Brooks dropped out as my dramaturge/ director. So, suddenly, a couple of months before our tour, I was left with no dramaturge/director and no leading actor. And the two Daniels were now competing with me for the same pot of money from External Affairs. I was pretty mad, and so was Tim. I felt that they were pulling a "Kent Staines" — withdrawing from an association at the last minute when it no longer served them. I asked them why they were dropping out. Daniel Brooks apologized

25$

profusely. I explained that the whole situation looked like it was planned. He assured me that it wasn't. Maclvor took much longer to apologize — in fact, I don't think he ever did. I think I confronted him and he was charming about it, as usual. Looking back, it's possible that Maclvor just happened to get cold feet over my production after finding himself too deeply involved. The whole thing was unfortunate. But our tours became separate all of a sudden. At the time, I blamed Maclvor's tour manager, a very officious and ambitious woman. I don't know if it was her fault, but I didn't want to hate the Daniels. Thank God we ended up getting our money from External Affairs. If Daniel had gotten his and we hadn't been able to go, I would have been murderous. We both ended up going, but our tours were really separate. So I had to suddenly come up with a play, or there would be no tour. I did. It was called Ten Ruminations on an Elegy Attributed to William Shakespeare. It was a good little piece, ostensibly about Shakespeare's questionable sexuality — directed by Franco Boni and acted by myself, the hilarious Gavin Crawford, and the versatile Patrick Conner. Theresa Przybylski did a stylish, ingenious transportable design. Tim was the tour manager. The play eventually received a great review in the London Times. I'd like to say that we had a wonderful time, but we didn't. Sure, Gavin, Franco, Patrick, and I had fun in London, Brighton, and Wales. I re-bonded with Sue. I got drunk after every show. I got banned from the only gay disco in Brighton. The boys in England like to have sex in washrooms (tea rooms). So when I went bar-hopping I would just head straight for the washrooms. In Brighton, this didn't go over very well. I set up shop in one of the toilets at the biggest (and only) disco in town, and after I'd had sex with a couple of very cute guys, the bouncer kicked me out. The next night, when I tried to get into the bar (it was Saturday and also London Pride day — a big night), the bouncer was at the door, and he said "You're not getting in, buddy! No way!" But even that experience didn't slow me down. I was on a veritable binge of promiscuity. What was emblematic of that tour for me was this: I missed Paris. Yeah, I missed it. You see, we had to stop off in Paris on the last day of our tour, and get the plane back to Toronto. We were only there for one day. But I missed it.

Let me explain. I got off the plane and took a cab to our guest house, which was quite near the Eiffel Tower. I remember looking up, seeing it, and thinking, "Oh yeah, that's the Eiffel Tower. Now I've seen it, so I don't have to fucking go there." In my gay guide, I noticed that there was a bathhouse in Paris called Key West. That sparked my interest. I decided to spend the whole day at the baths. I don't think I even had much sex there. It was completely crazy — I was in the city of romance, probably my only chance to see it, and I missed it. Something was seriously wrong with me. My sister, who had always fantasized about Paris, asked me to bring her back a little statue of the Eiffel Tower. I did. But I didn't tell her that I never actually visited it. I guess she'll know now. On top of my personal craziness, the tour was badly organized. We hated our digs. One day in Brighton, Gavin and Franco asked me to come look at their room in the guest house. There was one bed for the two of them. It was either a large single or a very small double. They lay down in it and said, "Hey, either we need a bigger bed, or we're going to have to become lovers!" Worse, no one came to see the play. Everyone blamed Tim. I don't know if it was his fault, or if I was just in such a frenzy of anger with him that I infected everyone else. When I got back from the tour, I discovered that Tim had resigned. Well, that was the charming end to a charming tour. Yeah, everything was charming, so damned charming. And my life was falling apart. I have to say that I honestly wasn't that upset over Tim's departure. Our relationship had become petty and mean. Tim was as unhappy as I was. But let me make it clear — whatever differences we may have had — that I believe Tim Jones was the saviour of Buddies in Bad Times. We never would have gotten 12 Alexander without him. He was my comrade, my brother in arms. It was a privilege doing battle with him. I couldn't have had a better, or more visionary, partner in crime. Of course, the rest of the people in the company didn't take Tim's exit with my calm. They were hysterical. It was understandable. Tim was the only person, besides myself and Gwen, who really knew anything about running the company. And by the fall of 1996, it was a huge operation. There were emergency board meetings galore, which were hell. We had to find a new general manager — fast. Tim's

257

exit caused all sorts of gossip, and Xtra went gleefully nuts speculating on whether we would close and digging for dirt about our deficit. I had sleazy little Xtra columnists stopping me at the grocery store with their pens and paper in hand: "Excuse me, Sky, but is it true that the Buddies deficit is now close to $500,000?" "Sorry, excuse me, I can't talk now, I'm trying to buy an orange." I looked at it practically. I knew that everything depended on getting a general manager who was as good as Tim Jones. But those were big shoes for anyone to fill. There was only one person who I thought could do it — Jennifer Ross. Ross was once the general manager of the Poor Alex and one of the founders of the Toronto Fringe Theatre Festival. She also happened to be Daniel Brooks' partner. I knew she had the know-how, and I knew diat she loved the art (she once wrote a play for Rhubarb!). She had good connections with the arts councils. She was perfect. The only question was whether she'd want to do it. I found out via the grapevine that her daughter had just reached school age, and that she might be willing to work. And I really liked her, which was also an important factor. But I didn't reckon on the Buddies board. They went with another candidate, Francisco Alvarez. It's beyond my comprehension why Tori Smith and Ed insisted we hire him. Nothing against Francisco, he's a smart and political gay man who has a history of donating his services to the cultural scene. He's been active in AIDS fundraising and a tireless worker for the community, but his experience was not in the theatre. He was a general arts administrator. I knew that Tirn found the bookkeeping frustrating, and drat often the way he'd get us out of financial straits was to lobby for more money. Besides, Tim was right that we didn't have enough operating funding in the first place. I thought that Jennifer would be able to lobby. I didn't think that Francisco knew enough about die theatre scene or the way such lobbying worked. Anyway, Tim also backed Francisco, and the board really trusted Tim. I guess he was their only link to stable succession. I still think they should have accepted my counsel in this particular situation. We hired Francisco, and the auditors seemed happy, too. They moved right into the building again, and worked with Francisco to sort out the deficit problems.

Well, the fall of 1996 came. I had written a play called Crater to open the season. I don't really want to talk about Crater. I think I'll just call it That Play. That Play was written because after Jim Dandy I thought that I should write something that was accessible to middle-class gay audiences. What a stupid reason to write a play. What did I know from sweater fags? That Play had what I hoped was a clear, easily understandable plot, and the kind of entertaining, stereotypical characters any idiot would love. I cast five enormously talented actors, and one character was even a comic, effeminate gay man. Well, the whole fiasco was worse than Jim Dandy. Nobody came. Only this time I didn't even like my own play. One interesting thing about That Play: it was the story of a man who disappears, who suddenly drops out of his life. It was absolutely prophetic; I had no idea when I was writing it that it would be. That's all I really have to say about That Play. During That Play the theatre started to fall apart, to close down before my very eyes. (It all makes sense; I was falling apart, too, and, after all, the theatre was me.) And if Gwen and I hadn't saved it — if Gwen and I hadn't loved it — it would be gone today. Rex Buckle was a key player. Tim had hired Rex to be a bookkeeper before he left, and Rex promised to stay on until Francisco started. Well, at some point during rehearsals for That Play, Rex Buckle decided that we'd have to close. Rex was a grey-haired grandmotherly man, friendly and sardonic on the outside, but quite harsh and unbending in practice. Now, he didn't do it all by himself, and I can't say there wasn't cause for alarm. I'd hate to have been a bookkeeper trying to keep us afloat during that time. But at some point Rex got on the phone with Francisco, who got on the phone with board member Jim Tennyson, who got on the phone with the auditors. They all said, "Stop. We can't put on your play. We don't have any money." This was one week before it was to open. It had never happened to me before. I had never been in a situation at Buddies where there was no money left one week before the play opened, and the staff and board were advising me to shut down the play. Buddies had been in very serious financial trouble

259

— more serious than this — but the staff and board had never suggested closing a production in rehearsal. No one could tell me how things had gotten so bad or why I hadn't been informed sooner. But it was, apparently, that bad. We couldn't afford my play. I went nuts, of course. I started screaming. I said I was marching off to my apartment and never coming back. But I did. When I returned, Gwen and the board were waiting for me. And I said that we were going to put on That Play no matter what. Everyone knows that you can't close the mainstage production by the artistic director a week before it opens. If you do, then things are so bad you might as well close the whole theatre. And I refused to close Buddies. I don't know how I did it. I ranted and raved and threatened. I cajoled and cried and stamped my feet. I demanded that the production go on, even if the theatre was in danger of closing the day after the play did. The actors were quite shocked by my screaming, and I don't think it helped the production. I knew that I could deal with the financial problems after the play closed. But I also knew that if the play closed before it opened I would lose the confidence of both the theatre community and the queer community. I donated $5,000 of my own money to keep us afloat. The money was supposed to go towards a film I was making (Buddies later paid me back). Somehow, the play went on, but soon after it opened, Francisco quit. Now, I think he's a very dedicated arts person who meant well. At one point he said to me, "I can't believe that this theatre is operating so close to bankruptcy all the time." I just looked at him. That's the way arts organizations in this city always operate. Buddies had almost closed countless times, as had many other small theatres. I explained it to him. If worse comes to worse we call in the councils and put ourselves at their mercy. We call everyone who's ever given a buck to the theatre and ask for money. We do something. But we do not let the theatre close. That's how alternative theatre in Toronto is. Always in a state of crisis. I had seen crises come and go, and this one, ultimately, wasn't that different from any of the others. I remember one day when Francisco was on his way out, I happened to find a hydro bill lying on the floor behind the bar. Things were in such a state that no one was picking up the mail. It said that the hydro would be cut off the next day. I told Gwen, and the two of us marched down to Toronto Hydro and pleaded with them not to cut off the juice. I couldn't believe it had come

to this. But Gwen just smiled at me when we were waiting at the window. I could see she was still holding that baseball bat somewhere in her mind. Once my play closed I could set my attention to dealing with the situation. The key was to get some sort of general management in order again. I called Tim, desperate, and he suggested Lascelle Wingate and Susan Moffat, who had a small company that specialized in getting theatres in crisis out of trouble. Perfect. I knew Lascelle from years before, and I knew that she was a highly competent, well-connected theatre professional. She had once been the administrator of the Grand Theatre in London. The board was still partial to closing the theatre, but Gwen and I thought that we could make it. After a talk with Lascelle and Susan, we knew we could do it. Lascelle was just like Tim — calm as a clam. She shows no emotion when talking business. She always seems detached and calculated. Susan was the opposite: she kept me laughing. Susan immediately set to inspecting die books and Lascelle started talking about ways of reducing the deficit and making friends with die auditors again. That was key, she said. Lascelle had connections. She started to ask around at the councils and at the city level. She reconnected with Kyle Rae. There was talk about getting our City Taxes waived. The news from Susan was not good. We were in dire financial trouble. But Lascelle thought there was some hope from the City of Toronto. They were waiving some debts for other theatres, so they might waive ours, too. Up until this time I had not considered quitting. I was too busy making sure that the company didn't fold. I didn't want to see an i8-year-old dream disappear. It was a matter of principle: experimental Canadian artists should have a chance to play and create; queers should have their own safe performance spaces. 12 Alexander had to be ours. Keeping the company together involved meeting with Kyle Rae and Anne Bermonte of the Toronto Arts Council. I wanted to find out if it was possible for us to get some cash from Buddies' endowment fund — money we were never supposed to actually use because it was held in trust as loan collateral. I will never forget that meeting. It was in Kyle Rae's office, just before

261

Christmas 1996. It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Soon after, I decided to quit. I had no idea what a fateful day it would be. I could not have known what perfidy lay in wait. When Lascelle and I entered, Kyle and Anne were ready for us. At first the chat was informal and sweet, very relaxed. There seemed to be good will in the air. Then Kyle and Anne started in. I could tell that they had been working together on this. They were not happy with me, or with the theatre. They couldn't understand how the finances could have gotten so out of hand. Neither could I. We were trying to fix that, I told them. But then the conversation took a strange turn. They did something they had never done before. They started to tell me what plays to program. Kyle's questions were leading towards one especially inane idea: that Buddies had too much "influence" on the work that was produced at 12 Alexander Street. His ignorance of our season and our work was astounding. "How do you program these plays?" he asked. I told him about the Programming Advisory Committee, made up of leading members of the theatre community and Buddies. (It was part of the original Edge proposal, which of course I'd always assumed he'd read.) "So Buddies has influence on the programming outside the 13 weeks?" I told him that we always had, and that was part of the original Edge agreement. "Maybe Buddies has too much influence," he said. How could Buddies have too much influence? The building was named Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. I think what he was really getting at was that the programming was too queer and too radical. Which is ironic, since both of those things are in the mandate of the company. Besides, he was supposed to be our gay representative on city council. I sat there, aghast, as the two of them started to suggest shows for the next season. "Couldn't you get some American plays?" Kyle asked. "Something from Broadway?" I told them that we were devoted to Canadian work, something that has also been in the mandate since the company's inception. "Yes," said Anne, "but Sky, couldn't you relax your principles and make an exception?" That was it for me. 1 couldn't believe it. This was Anne Bermonte, our theatre officer from the Toronto Arts Council. She had stood by Buddies in all its battles with the City. The Toronto Arts Council had — up until that moment — always been our most loyal and articulate supporter. And what was one of the leading arguments they used to back us up? That the arts councils must have an arms-length relationship with the City. And here she was, in some ignorant politician's office, sitting next to him and telling us what plays to program.

Buddies had always been dedicated to new Canadian avant-garde work. I knew that when the arts councils could no longer support that mandate, it was the beginning of the end for me. What interest did I have in programming Broadway hits? I had no desire to fly down to New York with Urjo Kareda, Bob Baker (the artistic director of Canadian Stage), and commercial trash producers like Follows and Latimer, and sit in the audience trying to figure out which plays made New Yorkers laugh the hardest. To me, being an artistic director was about creating new indigenous work — not stealing from our fecund, but so often superficial, neighbours to the south. On top of that, Kyle suggested, "Uh, hey, why don't you do something by Brad Fraser." Oh yeah, Brad Fraser. I'd almost forgotten about him. Actually, I hadn't forgotten about Brad at all. Brad had brought me his musical version of Outrageous before we opened the theatre. Nobody on the Programming Advisory Committee at Buddies really loved it. It seemed far too commercial for us. But I offered him the possibility of a workshop, and asked him to keep bringing me work. Of course I had thought of Brad Fraser, but he didn't seem too interested in pursuing us. And why should he? As an internationally produced commercial gay playwright, he had bigger fish to fry. Later, I figured out the motive behind Kyle's suggestion. Brad was writing a play about Kyle. After I left Buddies, the first play of the season was Fraser's Martin Yesterday, which was about an unnamed out Toronto city councillor. (How many of those are there?) Sure, the city councillor was promiscuous and a coke addict — and I know that Kyle, for all his faults, is neither of those things. But Kyle is an overweight, unattractive middle-aged man. Wouldn't it be exciting for him to see a play at Buddies that was rumoured to be about him, starring the attractive, slender Stewart Arnott? A play about a city councillor who is so cute that the boys won't leave him alone? I left the meeting angered and nauseated by Kyle's self-serving stupidity and Anne's duplicity. Over the holidays I had time to think, and I decided it was time to leave Buddies. It happened just like that, the way all big changes happen. I had a lot of time to myself over Christmas, and I reviewed my whole life. I knew I was

263

incredibly unhappy and tense and on the verge of the same old nervous breakdown. One of the techniques we used in therapy was to imagine doing things you might want to do to improve your life, and see how it made you feel. I imagined myself leaving Buddies. It felt great. No worries, no cares. I knew it would be a struggle. But I love a struggle. I knew it could mean the end of my professional theatre career. I called my friend Sally, who had known and loved Clarke Rogers. She said, "Look at what happened to Clarke." Clarke had resigned his job as artistic director of Theatre Passe Muraille many years ago. A couple of years later, he committed suicide. "Clarke told me that the only thing to do is move out of town. Ex-artistic directors are treated like pariahs. You'd better move out of Toronto, Sky." I didn't want to move out of town. After all, I couldn't imagine being treated any more like a pariah than I already was. When the therapist asked me to imagine leaving the theatre it was a great fantasy. I started imagining it over and over again. For one thing, I wouldn't have to worry about sucking up to middle-class fags anymore. From the moment we moved into the 12 Alexander space, I felt a responsibility to avoid explicitly criticizing middle-class fags. Now I could write a book about how horrible those sweater fags were, if I wanted to. (I did; it's a novel called Guilty.) For me, Buddies had always been three things. First, a place to produce my plays. But I could do that anywhere, I reasoned. At Buddies I was permitted to produce one big play a year and sometimes a small one. But that was it. The rest of the time was spent at board meetings and managing staff problems. If I left, I wouldn't have to deal with all that shit, and I could apply for grants to do plays on my own. I could start another little company. If I didn't get grants, I could do the plays with amateur actors in church basements. Why not? If you love theatre enough, you'll do it anywhere, anyhow. Second, Buddies was a buffer against homophobia. Okay, it was time to experience homophobia up close. Maybe building a protective cocoon around myself wasn't a good idea. Sure, many people got a lot of joy out of Buddies, but for me it was also a way to avoid the cruel realities of the art world. So what if nobody ever wanted to put on one of my plays again or publish my writing because I was a drag queen? So what? That just makes the struggle more exciting. I thought back to my very first days of

directing plays, with my early fears — when it was romantic, and I was the hero of my own life. Well, it could be that way again. I could get more politically involved. More angry. Not tantrums — but angry in a good way. Finally, Buddies was the centre of my social life. Forget that! Sure I was down in the Buddies cabaret every night, getting a little pissed. But was that a real social life? I have a problem: sometimes I mistake professional relationships for friendships. I'm very naive. I'm sure it was my mistake. I'm also really needy, and I had always mistaken my theatre life for a real life. If I quit Buddies, I would be forced to finally get a life. There would be no choice. The people who stuck by after I exited the limelight would be true friends. Maybe I'd even get a boyfriend. The plusses outweighed the minuses. I finally realized that I had created a charm factory, and that it would do just fine without me. The charm — middle-class theatre — was hovering, ready to take over. My little radical, outrageous ejaculations were dwarfed by it. I had been homeless, and Buddies had been homeless, too. Now Buddies had found a home, and everyone was greedy to take it away and turn it into something else. Well, they could have it. If I wanted to get really corny, I'd call up the image of Dorothy about to leave Oz, tapping her red sequinned shoes and chanting, "There's no place like home." Because home is not a theatre company, or bricks and mortar, or hundreds of acquaintances who call themselves your friends. It's something inside. Buddies, in fact, wasn't me. It was something I'd created to protect myself, and a lot of other people, too. I didn't need it anymore. At least I didn't think I did. I decided to quit. I think it was looking back at the Theatre Centre that finally pushed me over the edge. One big stumbling block to getting out was that I could never forget that I started Buddies — that it was my theatre. After all, I was the only one who knew about the old Jacques Prevert song, right? Then I remembered that I was also one of the founders of the Theatre Centre. Ah1 the founders of the Theatre Centre eventually left, but the Theatre Centre still functions. It's different than before, but we're still proud of our initial involvement. I decided that that should be my attitude towards Buddies.

265

I knew that I couldn't quit, officially, until the public perception of Buddie; had changed some. For the last two years, Xtra and the mainstream paper; had been on our deficit problems like a dog worrying a good bone. It wa; important to get some recognition of public, visible financial security. Lascelle and Susan were lobbying to get the City of Toronto to forgive our debts: along with those of some other theatres. It was a plausible plan. I figured ii they could work that one out, then I could leave. There would have to be headlines in the paper saying "Buddies Gets City Money!" in order to ensure the survival of the theatre: I knew I would have to leave on a good fiscal note. But I decided to tell some people, just to prepare them. I phoned Edward Roy and warned him. But I told R.M. Vaughan first. He was very surprised, which gave me a taste of what was to come. Like everyone else, he'd always associated me with Buddies, and he had a hard time imagining me without it. But then again, he had been the person to see me through all my agonies with Tim, so he knew how tortured I was. I told him that part of the reason I was leaving was that I envied him. He might not have had much money or security, but he was a real poet, a real writer — with independence of thought and action. He could live anywhere, write anything. He didn't have to worry about pleasing audiences or being nice to the middle-class. I think he was in a state of shock, but he understood. Next, of course, I had to chose a successor. The first thing I decided was that it should be a lesbian. This was partially in homage to Sue, for all her incredible support of the company, but it was also a matter of principle. How could we call ourselves a gay and lesbian theatre company if the artistic directors were always fags? I felt that Moynan King was completely capable of being the artistic director of Buddies. She had worked with me closely for the last three years. She was a hugely talented writer, director, and actor. She knew all the political ins and outs of the gay community and the theatre community. After the Christmas holidays I sat down with Moynan and Kirsten Johnson. I told them I was leaving and I told them why, and I offered the job to Moynan. They were both flabbergasted. I think that Moynan knew from the start that she wasn't going to take the job. So, for both of diem, it was like I had just slapped them in the face. I can understand why. They both counted on their jobs and loved them. I had given no one any indication that I was dissatisfied enough to leave. Suddenly, their work was thrown into jeopardy.

This was something that I hadn't been prepared for. I selfishly thought that my leaving the company was nobody's business but my own, that it wouldn't affect anyone (except those joyful to see me finally go!). I was wrong. There were countless artists at Buddies who had relied on me — for work and for moral support, too. I was the only artistic director of a mid-size theatre in Toronto dedicated to avant-garde, surrealist, non-linear, and experimental theatre. Where would these people go? Who would read their scripts or offer production at Rhubarb!, or Fourplay, or workshops, or readings, or cabaret performances? Moynan didn't take the job. I don't blame her. I really wouldn't wish it on anyone, and Moynan knew too well the pressures involved. The next person on my list was Sarah Stanley. I had a feeling she would take the job. I had met Sarah Stanley many years earlier, and all I can say is that she's got guts. She submitted a Rhubarb! proposal during the late '8os. We had accepted the proposal and were about to commence rehearsals when she phoned and said, "Sorry, I have to drop out." Not very good behaviour. I was pissed off. A couple of months later she invited me to lunch: no mention of the Rhubarb! debacle. She said that she was doing an outdoor performance project with her company, Die In Debt Productions. She wanted my recommendation. I couldn't believe it. I said, "Sarah, all I ever did was read one of your scripts. I liked it, but you dropped out of Rhubarb! at the last minute. I hardly know your work at all. All I can say is, you've got guts." She looked me in the eye and brushed a shock of her short, dyed blonde hair from her serious eyes. My God, she looked so much like Sue. The same lean, mean, compact, butch dyke energy. "Yeah, I guess 1 do." I remember I gave her some sort of recommendation because of that look in her eye. Since Buddies had found its 12. Alexander space, Sarah had been heavily involved in our Programming Advisory Committee. I found her comments incredibly astute and political. She was really smart, and 1 could tell that she knew an enormous amount about theatre politics and all about how to handle people. She had acted in her own play at Fourplay and was one of the stars of Dyke City. I didn't always enjoy her Die In Debt productions, but I respected them. She's a visionary director. To me, this was what was needed. The one minor problem was that she was Moynan's partner.

267

I wouldn't let this stop me. I took Sarah out to lunch and made the offer. She said that she would think about it, but I could tell she was hooked. Later we would talk about the mandate of the company. I told her how important I thought the Dungeon parties were. I explained that it wasn't about S/M as a personal preference. I also talked about drag's political importance. About how men and women are the same. Sarah said something that made me uneasy. "Don't you think that drag and leather are sort of, maybe, the historical signiflers of gay culture? Not the new ones?" I told her that I didn't think so. "What are the new signifiers?" I asked. Sarah couldn't tell me. "Maybe we'll create them." Well, I didn't agree with her, but I thought, what a fucking great political answer. This gal is one great talker, and she's charming me out of my political rant, so, hey, maybe she is the right one. In no time, Lascelle and Susan got the City to waive some theatre debts, and Buddies' deficit was reduced. This was in January 1997. I knew it was time to tell the world. I prepared a speech, saying that I would be leaving the company on June i, 1997. I thought that after 18 years, they could let me stay on for four months after the announcement. I miscalculated. Anyway, I decided to make the announcement in early February. Ostensibly, we were gathered to thank the City for forgiving our debts. No one knew what the announcement was about. The press and theatre types and political types were all there, waiting for me in Tallulah's. I made a speech. Here's the text: Now that I've got your attention, I want to take this opportunity to tell you the story of the name of this theatre. Buddies in Bad Times is taken from the tide of a poem by Jacques Prevert. "Buddies in Bad Times" is a poem about a theatre company that has to struggle to pay the bills because they produce art instead of commercial productions. What is most interesting to me, however, is a legend about Prevert. It goes like this. When the Nazis occupied Paris, Prevert's poems were banned. But Prevert was the people's poet, and one could find poems from his book Paroles (as the legend goes) scribbled on napkins. Now I would certainly not want, in any way, to compare Mike Harris' Tories with Nazis. And

yet, with the cuts to arts funding in this province, and with the attacks on this multi-cultural, multi-sexual city of Toronto, I can't help but be reminded of Prevert's situation in occupied Paris, his poems being scribbled on napkins. And in Toronto right now, Buddies is that napkin. It's a very important little napkin on which artists are scribbling some very beautiful poetry. We must make sure we do not lose it. That's why I am so pleased to make this announcement today. After founding Buddies in Bad Times Theatre 18 years ago, I feel it is time for me to resign as artistic director. Why at this particular time? Well, first of all, with the city's generous donation of $90,000 to Buddies, we have finally been able to get our financial house in order. I feel that Buddies' finances are finally secure enough to make this change. Secondly, it's time for me to leave Buddies. This is a very personal thing. I'm 44 years old, and I've spent most of my adult life as artistic director of this theatre. New challenges beckon. I'll be making my fourth film, I Am The Camera, Dying, this spring, and next year ECW Press will be publishing a book of my collected poems. If I am to grow as an artist and as a person, it's time for me to make a change. And to tell you the truth, the most joyous thing about this change has been choosing the person who will take the reins of the theatre. I'm glad to tell you that this person was at the very top of my list. She is someone who is enormously respected in the theatre community, and a Dora Award winner. She is a brilliant director, a brilliant communicator, and quite simply, a wise soul. She is just at die point in her career where she has the experience and the energy to be Buddies' artistic director, and she has dedicated her career thus far to queer theatre and new Canadian work. Ladies and gentlemen, will you take this opportunity, with me, to give a warm welcome to the new artistic director of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre, Sarah Stanley. I could see Kyle Rae in the back gesturing and talking to his friends through my speech. He was obviously not convinced about what I was saying. I couldn't figure out why he had turned against us. Why wouldn't he want Buddies to succeed? I guess he was just frightened that we wouldn't be successful as a gay and lesbian theatre if we did only new Canadian work. If we flopped and he was still standing behind us, he might lose votes. I don't know. But I do know he hated my speech.

• 269

I introduced Lascelle Wingate and Susan Moffat. There was polite applause. It was fun to watch the audience, filled with people who had been attacking me and the theatre for years. For once, they were at a loss for words. I felt like Richard Nixon. "You won't have Sky Gilbert to bash around anymore." All the detractors didn't quite know what to do with the new artistic director. She was a lesbian. Hmmm. It would be bad form to start trashing this petite, determined, butch woman right away. They would have to give her a chance to try and change the company first. Maybe get rid of any trace of Sky Gilbert. You see, my theory was that one of the reasons Buddies couldn't get support from the queer community was that so many people hated me. I thought that if I were to disappear, the company might have a chance. Of course, Sarah, tactfully, disagreed with me. "There are lots of obstacles that we have to overcome. You are not one of them." I thought that was a very nice thing for her to say. The next few months were very strange and messy and sad. I don't really want to talk about them, but since this book is about my years at Buddies, I suppose I should. One of my last acts as artistic director was to make sure that Sonja Mills was the new president of the company. I knew we needed a strong phalanx of dykes on the board to protect Sarah. And I also knew that Sonja was a fighter with strong politics. But I wasn't quite prepared for the actions of Sarah, Gwen, and the new board. I had told Sarah that she could work with me during March. My plan was that she could come into the office and I would familiarize her with everything. I had the possibility of an acting job in Montreal in April and May. She could run the company with me in absentia, available only by phone for two months. Then I'd come back in June and say goodbye. That was the plan. I went away at the beginning of March for a week in Key West — my yearly chill-out trip. When I came back, everything had changed. Apparently, when Sarah, Lascelle, Sonja, Gwen, and Susan looked at the books, they had gotten pretty upset. We were in deep trouble again. (But weren't we always?) While I was gone, they had decided to cut some plays from the season and release Moynan and Kirsten and some other staff members from their contracts. I was absolutely flabbergasted. Technically, I was still the artistic director.

Sarah made it very clear to me, though, that there was no money to pay me. She said she was willing to work for no salary until the theatre got on its feet. Well, that was better than I could do. The theatre job in Montreal was a very high-paying one. I knew I could live off it for a few months and come back with enough money to at least make it through the summer. So, when I left Buddies that March for my acting job, I knew that I had effectively left the theatre as artistic director forever. I was free, still good-looking, still talented, and 44 years old. I didn't know what the future would hold. My last official contact with Buddies came in that summer of 1997, when I returned from Montreal. Even though I had resigned as artistic director, I was still on the Buddies board. I can't remember, actually, if I ever attended a single board meeting after resigning. But soon after returning to Toronto, I read an article in Xtra that gleefully reported that Buddies was going to cancel its Dungeon parties. It was all too ironic. A debate was starting about whether or not Buddies was losing its edge. It made me laugh. When I was artistic director, the press was always knocking us for being too edgy. Now that Sarah was doing what I couldn't allow myself to do, what was financially necessary — taking a more middle-of-the-road attitude — she was being criticized for blunting the theatre's edge. Considering this incredible turnaround, one has to seriously question the critics of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. And their motives. Anyway, I was very upset when I learned that Buddies might be cancelling the Dungeon parties. All I could think of was Sue and our battle against Christina Blizzard and the homophobes. To cancel the Dungeon parties would mean betraying all of her courage and all of our brave supporters on the glittering yet dangerous edge of the sexual continuum. I called Sarah and invited her to lunch. She was very charming. Why does everyone in theatre have to be so bloody charming? Because theatre is charm. When I told her that I read in Xtra that the Dungeon parties might be cancelled, she looked at me with her serious eyes, in the same way she had so many years before.

271

"Come on, Sky. Do you believe everything you read in the papers?" Sheepish and embarrassed, I left the luncheon apologetically. A month later, the Buddies Dungeons were officially cancelled. Soon after that, I cancelled any formal association I had with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. It's a good thing, really. I think that since sexual liberation and artistic experimentation are no longer integral to Buddies, I'm better out of it. These things are very dear to me. I can explore them better on my own. In case you're wondering — that's what I've been doing ever since.