I am withdrawing the workshop of my opera Shakespeare’s Criminal (composed by Dustin Peters) from the 40th Anniversary Season of Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. It’s time for me to go. Listening to people at the ‘Long Table,’ it became clear to me that Buddies is no longer a Gay and Lesbian Theatre, as it was when I was the artistic director. It has evolved into a space for a new generation of people challenging the mainstream in a new way. In order for those who have been wounded by the white colonial capitalist patriarchy to heal, they need their own home, and they must take power in that home. Buddies is now a home for people representing a range of intersectional genders and identities. This is a wonderful thing and I applaud it. I have no doubt that in the future Buddies will produce plays which will have powerful messages. And also, significantly, Buddies will host concerts, speeches, films, rallies, wakes, celebrations, demonstrations, protests and ‘Long Tables.’ There will be laughter, there will be tears, there will be rage, and there will be redemption — all for important causes. Social justice, trans activism, reconciliation issues and the rights of people of colour, importantly define the youth of today — and our youth is our future.
I took over Buddies in Bad Times Theatre from George Luscombe of Toronto Workshop Productions in 1994. George Luscombe was also a social activist and pioneer — a socialist whose idol was Joan Littlewood (a disciple of Brecht). We had very different artistic visions, but we both saw ourselves on the ‘left’ of things. George Luscombe handed the space over to us acknowledging that we were the rightful heirs. I wish to do the same now. I no longer want my name, my voice, my essays, my ideas, my plays, my novels, my poems, my art — or anything about me — to be associated with Buddies. I'm happy to make space for others. Someday I’m sure, Evalyn will do the same.
As for me, I will continue to fight for what is important to me (and hopefully not to me alone) freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and the rights of gay men and drag queens — the rights of sex-positive people of all genders, sexualities and colours.
I stand for effeminate sexual men, s/m dykes, sex trade workers, sexual spaces (like bath houses, porn shops and strip clubs), HIV and sexual health activists, gender and sexual outlaws, sexual liberation, the fetish community and all those who explore alternatives to monogamy and marriage.
I will fight for freedom of speech because I think ‘art’ is very different from ‘politics.’ Both must be nurtured, but nurtured separately. Poetry must not bear the weight of society’s approval or disapproval.
Poetry must be free.
