I’m sitting in

a restaurant on Church Street having breakfast. It far too much resembles the dining room in a rest home for for my taste. We are all single gay men, older (some ancient, I heard a dialogue at a nearby table yesterday about hearing aids). And we are all alone, which is different than being lonely. Some of us like it that way; my  boyfriend and I are both loners who somehow fell into each other (the way politicians fall on dicks by mistake when being questioned by the press in the TV show Little Britain), and we are happy to be alone together — which means to live very separate lives but meet now and then to argue, make up, and kiss. I must say that the hostess in this lovely Church Street restaurant encourages the feeling we are in an old folks home — right now she is sitting patiently, far to my right in a solitary chair, wearing a mask, just watching. Her excessive suffocating cheerfulness is the very epitome of condescension. Of course you wouldn’t dare suggest this to her as she is just being ‘nice.’ For her, everything is ‘fabulous!’ — and she always asks how you are. I want to say 'I’m old and cranky and slightly hung over' but instead I smile and nod, and understand that it must be a difficult job taking care of all these effeminate ex-talks of the gaytown. It all reminds me of a storefront my boyfriend and I saw in a Las Vegas mall: Elder Daycare. He was ecstatic ‘At last! Somewhere to put you during the day!’ Indeed, it did actually seem to be an elder daycare centre; it was, sadly, no joke. So I’m closing a show tomorrow. None of you will have heard of it, none of you came. I am being harsh — some of my very best friends came to see it, and some of the best friends of the actors too. We had a great time. In fact it seemed as if I had come alive again. I realised that I had not been truly happy for months, and it was all because I was directing a play that I wrote— something I’ve been doing since I was approximately 10 years old. Back then I wrote a musical using Beatles songs from the A Hard Day's Night. I’m sure I've talked about this before, but yes, my theatrical career began when I told my mother that I needed something to look forward to (she was perplexed and frightened that a 10 year old was depressed in such a relatively sophisticated manner). So we  had the idea that creating a little theatre in our home might cheer me up (I forgive my mother all her transgressions because of this!). So she asked my father to put up a curtain (all you really need is a curtain, right?) in the basement. And I organised the neighbourhood kids in various productions. Often, the other kids were reluctant and I felt like Bing Crosby in The Bells are Ringing. (I’m sure it was a way for me to make contact with other little boys — because as you may have guessed, I was not too good at baseball.) So yes, for the last 60 years I’ve been doing plays in the basement to cheer myself up. And when I got back down to it this fall, it didn’t matter that we had no money, and it didn’t matter than no one would come. We all just had to do it (I think the actors felt the same way, to some degree, though it’s hard to believe that it meant as much to them as it did to me.) The performers were all friends of mine, and all quite brilliant. Opening night was amazing: all 15 people seemed enthralled, some ran to the dressing room after. I realize now of course that this is my fate. I am not only an old gay man (a regrettable example of humanity — ready for the junk heap of ideology and sexuality), but also, I was summarily cancelled in 2018 (remember?). This is what cancellation means. I still have my job and I still am privileged (I remember Carly Maga, in what will probably prove to be one of  my last 'interviews'  --  little did I know -- asked me if I would acknowledge that I have privilege, and I said yes Carly I will do that, just don’t think that that acknowledgement is all that is required to silence me.) At any rate, yes, I still have my job and my privilege —  but cancellation in case you are interested, takes subtler forms. For instance I am no longer likely to mentor young professional actors. The cast for The Little Show is not quite as old as me — but it is only older professionals that will have anything to do with me. The young are shocked, some were shocked by my script, I sent The Little Show  to some young un’s and received comments like ‘do you want to die on that hill?’  (which I think is a reference to heroism in extreme warfare). I answered that yes I did, I’ve been dying on controversial hills for ages.  All in all dying on hills is something that I  enjoy, or let’s just say I'm quite used to sabotaging myself by constantly telling the truth as I know it. But I want you to understand that I am content with my fate. I knew it would come to this -- that I would be back in my basement and I would have to rely on my father for a curtain and my mother for encouragement. I have my work, and even if just one person comes to see it and there’s no 'set', it’s still theatre (that’s what Peter Brook says, anyway) The deafening silence that now surrounds my work only makes me strong. I think this is something people have never understood about artists, that we thrive on rejection  — most of us are perverse in particularly that way.  The  critics called Ibsen’s Ghosts “an open drain, a loathsome sore unbandaged, a dirty act done publicly” and it just inspired him to write An Enemy of the People. I’ve aspired to create my own personal fictional open sores, open drains and certainly made public countless dirty acts through my own creations. I must ask you to please understand that being alone is not the same as being lonely.  I don’t miss the life I used to have. I  know now that what I always loved was the work. And the best moments happened in rehearsal.Yes I am playing the martyr here; but please forgive me, at the very least I deserve to play that, and if you don’t think I deserve to, more power to you!  It will only fuel the anger in my heart; the anger that drives me to write.