Toronto Queer Theatre Festival: the glorious gamut of queer life. And some mother issues

17 Sep 2019


Toronto Queer Theatre Festival: the glorious gamut of queer life. And some mother issues

In its eighth year, Gay Play Day has rebranded as the Toronto Queer Theatre Festival. Thirteen plays by established, outrageous and emerging queer playwrights presented in bite-sized but satiating sizes, are divided into a "Lavender Show," a "Pink Show" and one very special matinee.

Producer Darren Stewart-Jones has not only curated a remarkable selection of playwrights and plays but is himself represented by his play JC Superstar, "based upon the actual final meeting between Hollywood superstar Joan Crawford and her estranged son." Whether Christopher, embodied by Josh Sanger, is as memorable as Christina is immaterial, when Joan Crawford is being played by Elley-Ray Hennessey (My Dinner with Casey Donovan, Gash!) who can certainly out-emote either Faye Dunaway or Jessica Lange.

More mother issues from David Bateman (TransMeditations, A Mad Bent Diva, The Case of the Golden Purse, People are Horrible Wherever You Go) and Peter Lynch are "long time lovers reminisce about their mothers by sharing snippets from Mother’s Day cards they sent to each other over the years." Undoubtedly more disturbing, camp and crotch-grabbingly heartwarming than wire hangers.

Even more mother issues (a festival theme?) from Philip Cairns with His Body Language, "a serio-comic play about Freddy, an insecure gay man, his relationship with his dead mother, who gives him advice, and his obsessive crush on Marcello, a very attractive man." His Body Language stars Leslie Ann Coles, Kody Poisson and Nicholas Surges who are all, very attractive and worthy of obsessive crushes. 

Steven Elliott Jackson (The Seat Next to the King, Threesome, Real Life Superhero) returns to the political fray that earned him plaudits with The Interview, "a father and Conservative MP up for re-election faces his toughest interview yet - his teenage lesbian daughter." Very timely, though even if Scheer had a lesbian daughter he would still never be as articulate or witty as Jackson character.

Lawrence Aronovitch (The Lavender Railroad) takes One Small Step wherein "It's 1969 and a young man is watching the moon landing on TV when there’s a knock at his door and he must confront a love affair gone sour." It's the 50th anniversary of the moon landing but gay love affairs gone sour are timeless.

Outward by Wilson Stilwell features Bil Antoniou (Spend Your Kids' Inheritance, Heart of the Storm, We Say Such Terrible Things) in a small town bowling alley. The blurb says that "relationships grow and assumptions are challenged" but I'm curious as to how Antoniou will rock those shoes.

Jade Walker contributes Defiled Doe at Teatime, and a couple faces a relationship threat in "a derelict mall" in AB Neilly's The Secret. Tamai Kobayashi has "an East Asian butch femme couple" get Cold Feet on the eve of their wedding, and Erika Roesser's Unbroken Ties posits that "just because you broke up with me doesn't mean I broke up with you." Fortunately Josh Downing insists that the audience "listen for the love, that is All That Remains.”

As if that was not enough comedy, heartbreak, queer drama and mother issues, Sky Gilbert (Shakespeare's Criminal, I Cook He Does the Dishes, It's All Tru (a play about AIDS), Sad Old Faggot, The Terrible Parents, My Dinner with Casey Donovan, To Myself at 28, A Few Brittle Leaves, Dancing Queen, Hackerlove, The Situationists) gifts the Toronto Queer Theatre Festival with a matinee performance of his newest work Conversations (With Faggots). (There are also two performances of Conversations (With Faggots) on Fri, Sept 20 at the Super Wonder Gallery, 584 College St. Info on Facebook.) Gilbert says the play is "about what it means to be a gay man in 2019 in Toronto" and that it was written for the talented duo of Graham Conway (The Ding Dong Girls, Peter Pan) and Jean-Paul Parker.

Methinks the entire Toronto Queer Theatre Festival will tell us a lot about what it means to be queer in 2019.