All that is Useless is Human

Visiting the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp outside Berlin was eye opening for me, perhaps not for the obvious reasons. It was not — like camps such as Auschwitz and Majdanek — so much focused on immediate extermination as it was on a death that came more slowly — through starvation, lack of proper medical care, torture, and overwork. The distinction might seem like hair-splitting, but I would propose that what happened in Sachsenhausen exemplified the Nazi philosophy. ‘Those who deserved to live’ had to be separated from ‘life unworthy of life.’ It is true that at Sachsenhausen some were murdered quickly and in cold blood (Soviets, for instance, where killed here immediately, much the way Jews were in other camps). But many prisoners at Sachsenhausen were not immediately killed, and the ones who survived did so because they had the fortitude to live through the often meaningless and torturous jobs that were assigned them. In this way the propaganda on the entrance gate ‘arbeit macht frei’ (work will make you free) became a nightmarish truism.

Nazis were obsessed with those that they felt did not ‘contribute’ to society. This should remind us that what makes humans humane is taking care of those who may seem to ‘contribute’ less — for instance, those who cannot, for whatever reason, take care of themselves. It should make us think of  the inscription on the Statue of Liberty — ‘bring me your tired, you poor, your huddled masses.’ But it should also make us think about the distinctions that we make today — especially in the digital capitalism — between who is ‘productive’ and who is not.

The mega-corporations that dominate global capitalism consistently hire only those who will produce the most goods for the cheapest pay; and humans are gradually being replaced by machines, because machines are cheaper, faster and ultimately, more productive.

In reality, all that makes us human also makes us useless in terms of productive work — our capacity to love, to experience fear, to be inspired, and to have pity for others. Big capitalism would have us believe that modern mega-corporations like Apple and Google are interested in hiring radical thinkers and generous souls; in truth they are interested in people who ‘radically’ and ‘generously’ serve the company’s profit margin. 

To think otherwise is to believe propaganda on the level of ‘arbeit macht frei.’

Oscar Wilde made much of the notion that all great art is useless. And though I do not mean to suggest that we do not need science or technology, our ability to achieve in those realms is not what separates us from what is not human. No, it is those things that cannot be quantified or qualified, it is all that can be felt, imagined and dreamed; our sensitivity, our creativity and our imagination that makes us unique and ‘worthy of life.’

As humans, we must value what is ‘useless’ about us, for it is the essence of what makes us good and beautiful.

The lesson of history lies before us.

Please believe me. 

We value ‘use,’ over all else, at our peril.

DESTINATION NOSTALGIA

There were no standing ovations at the Berliner Ensemble in Germany last night. I have just seen Endstation Sehnsucht (A Streetcar Named Desire) directed by Michael Thalheimer and designed by Olaf Altmann — and ‘from the English by Helmar Harald Fischer.’ Though I adore this play on the page, I have never seen a production of Streetcar that I liked. No arguing with Marlon Brando’s performance; but Vivien Leigh was just too over the top for me (where is Jessica Tandy when you need her)? Nevertheless the performances in Kazan’s 1951 film are so iconic as to have blotted out this play as play. 

Anyway, the title of this German version translates as ‘Destination Yearning” (Destination Nostalgia is a literal translation). It seems to me to be somewhat of an adaptation (I don’t speak German so I was unable to read the program notes) but it strikes me that the English subtitles provided were not identical to the play that I have read so many times. Some text - here and there — was definitely changed and/or excised. It doesn’t really matter though, because this interpretation made this old play seem so alive to me. Thalheimer and Altmann have apparently collaborated before; the design and direction were unique and unforgettable. 

Realism is abandoned — as one might expect from a theatre espousing Brecht— and the set is nothing more than a ramp carved into a kind of cave in a massive wall (very technically difficult, I would think for the actors to act on). From the beginning this speaks to Blanche’s tragedy — as characters are constantly falling down or climbing up. Often they speak directly to the audience. At the back the walls light up at certain moments (the ‘coloured lights’ mentioned by Stanley) accompanied by heavy metal music.  

There were three major differences in this production and any other production I have seen. First, the class issues in the play were perfectly clear — Stanley and Stella’s working class friends were yelling and laughing (one section I will never forget was just a woman laughing savagely in the dark for what seemed like a whole minute)  in ways that reminded me of my Hamilton Hardcore working class neighbours. Second, Stanley wasn’t sexy, nor a brute (he had a pot belly) he was simply horny, somewhat violent man — like so many others. And Blanche was definitely horny too; in their first meeting she was clearly seducing him — it was her a mode of survival. All of this makes the play clearer as treatise; finally the fog of sentiment has been cleared away. Blanche is not fragile, she is a biting, scratching, desperate woman, very much as Stella describes her — misused by life and discarded in a pile of furs and fake pearls at the bottom of the ramp/cave at the end. Stanley isn’t a hot guy you might secretly want to rape you, he is just a working class man, caught in a web of his own male privilege and the class exploitation imposed upon him. 

The audience must think; but still, I was crying all through. All about the acting; the gestures — fierce, moments of repetition — haunting. Blanche whispering ‘Stella Stella Stella Stella' — a hiss. Stanley at the end, saying over and over again ‘everything’s going to be alright' until it becomes a yell. A production unafraid to be politically incorrect and completely real — oddly without a speck of old-fashioned ‘realism.’ We will not see the likes of this in Canadian theatre, for obvious reasons. And there was no standing ovation — like I see those oafs in the audience do for every bad play we see in Toronto. In Berlin, the audience just clapped and clapped and clapped (and clapped), because there was nothing left to do.

Remembering Jenny

I have to say a few words about Jennifer Phipps, who died very recently. I met her at the Shaw Festival when I was working there in the early 1980s. I had been brought in from Toronto by Christopher Newton to assistant direct, and due to my relationship with Christopher some of the actors seemed to view me with some suspicion. Not Jenny. We got to talking and I told her about my frustrations being away from my Toronto theatre company and I mentioned that I had written a play called Jungle Boy, about an incestuous relationship between a mother and a son. She immediately expressed interest: “I’d love to read it darling.” She always used that word — it always made me think of her as an old time movie star. I never thought that a big Shaw actress would be interested in acting in one of my plays; but in no time we worked it up and presented it in the Shaw lobby to an audience that was made up of an acting company somewhat bewildered by our efforts. A couple of years later I wrote a play about Cocteau called Radiguet, and I needed someone to play the role of a madwoman; Jenny enthusiastically agreed to star in the play at the tiny Poor Alex Theatre in Toronto; it was the first play that I directed Edward Roy in (of whom she was very fond). 

No one has said several things that it is important to say about Jenny. She was an enormously charming, generous woman. She loved gay men; I’m not sure why, but I knew that it wasn’t just me, but the fact that I was gay, that was so attractive to her. She was an enormously talented actress, highly underestimated because she was so kind and modest (not like her old friend Joan Collins, at all!). To work with her was a lesson in acting; her work was very instinctive and real. If you put a prop anywhere near her it was in danger of being used — perhaps in ways you had never imagined, so you had to be careful! I saw her at Shaw in a definitive performance in Coward’s perfect comedy Hay Fever, and she was perfect in it, as the dotty Judith — so full of love and insanity that she kept me in stitches from the moment she walked on stage.

I had written a play for her in the 80s called Cheri (inspired by the Colette novel) which was rejected by Urjo Kareda at Tarragon. The play was lost, but when I happened to see her a couple of years ago I rewrote it for her and we tried to do it again together, but she became ill.

And this is the final thing. At one of the rehearsals for Cheri, I asked Jenny her age, and it unleashed a tempest: “Oh I don’t tell my age darling,” she said “because it’s become an issue. Because they think that someone who is 84 years old can no longer act. And it’s because I’m an old woman. It’s not fair. It doesn’t happen to old men!” Her fury frightened me somewhat but I sympathized, because I know she had struggled — despite her magnificent record at the Shaw Festival — with finding work during her last years. If anything were to come of Jenny’s death it might be that artistic directors should remember their old actors. Being old isn’t very popular these days; but Christopher Newton had a practice in his company that I truly respected; he always made a place for them, even if it was a butler, carrying a tray. We could do worse than remember them.

Calum Marsh Gets It Wrong

Most people know me as a drag queen, a gay playwright and/or activist. So often — when I tell them what my 9-5 job is university professor — they say: “Good for you!” Yes, I’m not kidding. It is ‘good for me’ that I somehow triumphed over my crazy effeminate queerness and managed to snag a job. They do everything but pat me on the head.

I feel somewhat the same way about Calum Marsh’s latest article in the National Post: “Why Queer Eye makes me cry. Every. Time.”

Well ‘Queer Eye’ makes me cry, it really does, but for quite different reasons. 

Calum says that the old show ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’ was out of date because of ‘the stylish queen stereotype.’ Now, the show has been ‘revitalized’ with an ‘earnest unpretentious spirit’ of ‘infectious positivity.’ He portrays the queer-eyed-guys as therapists who help people by — instead of just dressing them up —  encouraging them, for instance, to eat more healthily, and to gain confidence.

Okay, got it. But these queer-eyed-guys are still helpers. The message of the show is that homosexuals are the world’s perpetual personal assistants. Gays don’t have a life of their own. (God help us if Netflix were flooded with shows about the real life stories of modern gay men!) No. Gay men exist to facilitate straight lives; to make straight lives better.

This justifies our existence, somewhat, because — without our knack for decorating, dressing and therapizing — we would be — for most people — merely pretty ornaments and/or dangerous sex fiends.

All of this flies in the face of history. Without gay men we would not have the modern novel (Proust) or the modern computer (Alan Turing). We would be without great scientists like Leonardo Da Vinci, George Washington Carver, and Alfred Kinsey. We would not have some of the most beautiful fiction ever written (Thomas Mann, Truman Capote, D.H. Lawrence, James Baldwin, Yukio Mishima) We would not have some of the most beautiful music ever composed (Handel, Lully, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky, Poulenc, Samuel Barber — and Schubert too, though the musicologists get very angry about this one!). Without gay men we would not have some of the greatest paintings ever created (Caravaggio and Michelangelo — to name two you might have heard of!), or two of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century (Wittgenstein and Foucault), as well as an ancient philosopher you also may recognize (Plato). And without Bayard Rustin — Martin Luther King’s closeted, gay, unheralded right hand man — we would not have the modern civil rights movement.

Oh yes, and we also happen to dress very well, and we also happen to be very good at helping heterosexuals sort out their inevitably screwed-up lives. 

(Just try being a heterosexual! I tried it once; it was a nightmare!) 

So Calum — why are you so obsessed with our modern Netflix identity as the ‘world’s personal assistants’ as opposed to our actual role in human history, which is being a major force in creation of human knowledge? 

Can you answer that one for me, Calum, huh?

Why a Woman Should Not Play Lear

I shall have to wait until I’m dead before someone reads this essay and agrees with me.

Seeing Glenda Jackson in King Lear (previewing in New York City presently) was an enormous pleasure. She is an amazing actress and an amazing woman. At 82 to take command of this role in the way that she did — it was awe inspiring! 

I agree with non-traditional casting in general — and by this I mean that characters should be played by actors of any colour or gender — except in cases when such casting changes the meaning of the play in ways that are not intended.

This is what happens in Sam Gold’s production of King Lear.

Here is the first thing you will not agree with in this essay: Shakespeare was a feminist. ‘But,’ you say, ‘what about the fact that the leading characters in most of his plays are men — and his characters often say such awful things about women?’ True. But I would suggest that all Shakespeare’s tragic heroes suffer a crisis of masculinity — one that nearly destroys the patriarchy and kingship. Macbeth and Hamlet both find it difficult to act in manly fashion, and both Antony and Othello are brought down by their love of women. Lear is absolved of masculine privilege and his kingdom to boot — and ends up naked on the heath cursing thunder. Shakespeare is suggesting that Lear’s experience is a good one for a sexist, patriarchal male king.

Glenda Jackson is fully capable of presenting all the subtlety, strength, intelligence and hurt that is Lear’s. (At one point when she is wheeled forward slumped in a wheelchair, and she looks so much like Stephen Hawking — it will break your heart. And the ‘butterflies in a cage’ speech — it’s worth waiting for!). But Glenda Jackson is not a man. Part of Shakespeare’s dramaturgy is to bring a man with a male body and a penis under his clothes to centre stage and then humiliate him. The point is to decimate the male. This humiliation must be real or there is no drama. It is pointless to humiliate a woman in such a fashion. In fact doing so short circuits the feminist message. Are we to infer that women are just as bad as men? That they are responsible for the same sins as men?

One thing we can say for certain is that there is a patriarchy and male leadership is responsible for much of what is wrong with the world; this is what Shakespeare is saying. That message is undermined by putting a woman in the role; the play then becomes a less feminist play.

This is the problem with many stagings which attempt to correct the sexism of these old plays; it is done with no real understanding of the message of the play, or the message that non-traditional casting sends.

With Jayne Houdyshell’s brilliant portrayal of Gloucester in the the same production I have no casting problem. The character of Gloucester is not principally about the poisonous patriarchy; it is principally about blindness — it is about perception and reality. Thus, it makes no difference if a man or woman plays the role.

Years ago, I asked an artistic director of colour (who I won’t hold responsible for her remarks here) what her opinion was of what was then called ‘colour blind’ casting. She said: “As long as  the play is not a contemporary political one, where it would unintentionally change the meaning of the play, it’s an important thing to do.”

Because Shakespeare is, phenomenally,  still ‘our contemporary’ —  I must say, I agree.

News Flash: Hormone Blockers Also Block Sexuality

The latest trend in child-rearing sees parents taking their children to gender clinics to deal with their children’s ‘gender issues.’ The CBC tells us “children's clinics across the country are seeing exponential growth in demand for treatment from teens who don't identify as the sex they were born with.”

What’s going on? Clinicians routinely say it all has to do with increasing awareness of transgender issues. But is that all that is happening?

It used to be that when boys were deemed ‘effeminate’  — that is, they liked to play with dolls — the psychological community used to think they were gay. Now boys who play with dolls (and girls who play with trucks) have moved from being labeled ‘gender dysphoric’ to the more politically correct label: ‘transgendered.’ We are told that their situation has nothing to do with sexuality, and everything to do with gender. But is it possible that these young people could be, in fact, gay and lesbian, and that they are are being told by well meaning but ill-informed clinicians and doctors ‘don’t worry, you are most likely transgendered?’

The likelihood of this scenario increases when you consider the effects of ‘hormone blockers’ which are the usual prescribed treatment for young people who come to ‘gender clinics.’ The effects have not been fully studied simply because hormone blockers have not been in wide use long enough to see the long term consequences. It is suspected, however, that they could effect bone development, fertility and brain function.

But it is a much more significant and immediate side effect of hormone blockers — one that is being universally ignored — that has me worried.  

I discovered this information in the Porto Biomedical Journal (available online at https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2444866417301101). PBJ is “an open-access journal devoted to the publication of top quality original research conducted in the biomedical fields.The journal only accepts articles that undergo a strict revision process in a double-blind refereeing system.”

According to PBJ, hormone blockers do not simply block the process of menstruation and the development secondary sexual characteristics in teens, they also block the natural progression of teen sexuality. The journal states “the impact on sexuality has not yet been studied, but the restriction of sexual appetite brought about by blockers may prevent the adolescent from having age-appropriate socio-sexual experiences”….and also “in light of this fact, early interventions may interfere with the patient's development of a free sexuality and may limit her or his exploration of sexual orientation.”

Wow. So hormone blockers not only effect the gender of the child, but ensure that as they grow to adolescence they will be wiped clear — it seems — of all that pesky little thing called sexual desire! This is really scary. When parents come to a clinic with a little boy who plays with dolls, they can be assured that the child will not only have their gender changed to one more appropriate for their activities, but that their sexual experimentation during adolescence will be reduced, due to the restriction of their sexual appetite that comes with hormone blockers.

We live a homophobic culture. It is also a sexually schizophrenic one that recommends abstinence to combat venereal disease for the same young people who can easily access porn online. In this contradictory, damaged sexual culture, parents can  — utilizing hormone blockers —not only change their children’s gender, but also rest assured that their children’s adolescent sexual shenanigans will be ‘under control.’

Brave New World, anyone?

Exposing the Subtle Racism of Come From Away

Racism has at last become unfashionable, at least in the mainstream. So when racism makes a high profile appearance it’s a surprise. I haven’t seen Come From Away for nearly six months, and for six months I’ve been asking everyone the same question — ‘why is such a mundane, unhummable musical so popular?’

I’ve also been complaining about the token gay characters. The musical is all about the kind, nice, straight people of Gander — but now and then a chirpy gay couple pops in and makes us laugh with their harmless shenanigans. Why is this offensive to me as a gay man? Because gay men have been represented as secondary characters who provide comic relief since the dawn of time. (This even applies to Will and Grace, which — though it features a gay man as the leading character — is all about his friendship with a woman, leaving Jack MacFarland, Will’s sidekick, to be the effeminate guy who actually has gay sex and is therefore, well, the real gay man.) 

The presence  of these two ‘chatty Jacks’ in Come From Away does not explain its popularity.  But this mega-musical’s treatment of people of colour may very well do so. The theme of Come From Away is ‘Aren’t the people of Gander, Newfoundland kind and wonderful?’ The plot centres around the population of a mainly white little town that opens its heart to foreign airplanes forced to land there temporarily during 911. It makes much of the ability of the town’s mostly white, Celtic citizenry to put aside their prejudices and welcome a Muslim passenger. Of course Come From Away makes every attempt to humanize its token Muslim character (just as it tries to humanize its token gay couple) — but  ultimately this is a musical about how wonderful white, straight people are. The leading white characters are extolled for helping the marginalized secondary characters. It’s a giant congratulatory slap-on-the-back for North American whites — who are specifically celebrated in Come From Away’s opening song: ‘Welcome to the Rock.’ Come from Away, like Kinky Boots,  is part of a new trend: mega-musicals that celebrate tolerance. Funny, but I personally have never been very fond of being tolerated.

Am I being a nit-picky, political correct lefty a-hole? After all, how can you possibly accuse an anti-racist musical of being racist? I’m not saying that any play that celebrates the fabulousness of white people is racist. But, sorry, the person most likely to get-teary eyed over the fact that some old Newfoundland lady has to go out and buy extra toilet paper for an unexpected guest is probably another old white lady (the target audience for this musical) and her husband — that she dragged out to see this corny stuff. And how did that lady get her ‘hubby’ there? Well, both of them feel a little guilty about being white people these days — and Come From Away makes them feel better.

I’m not blaming anybody (certainly not the fine cast, director, etc.)  — just our messed up ‘tolerant’ culture. But perhaps this is something to think about? When plays become all about making money (not art) then sometimes quality is sacrificed for pandering to our very worst instincts.

And we may not even know it’s happening.