Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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One can speculate on reasons for this reaction. An audience member expecting no
homosexuality in the play could be surprised by its presence. If such a person took offense
to the play’s gay presences (which Alexandrowicz considers), that member may also have
summarily dismissed the play’s other political themes. Those that chose to walk out likely
found little to value in the play.
However the wider conditions of production and reception offer ample clues that the
play is risqué and a certain amount of provocation is to be expected. The varying framings
through which the play is contextualised in media, be they bouffon, satire, cabaret, spoof,
camp or even Brecht/Weill, set up expectations that the play would likely have humorous
content. Even if an audience member only looked to the Festival’s program, its vague
descriptors create this expectation. Thus an audience likely enters the theatre expecting that
the sexual, risqué, and political material is to be appreciated as both provocative and
humorous. Most theatre goers do not expect to witness material that completely replays
their own ideologies. Additionally most theatrical styles offer some exploration in terms of
the various issues and viewpoints inherent in their themes, as conflicts between them create
drama. But Beggars’s extreme perspective on issues of class and capitalism may be
considered biased. Beggars’s bawdy, risqué or overtly sexual moments are inherently part
of the play’s political discourse addressing marginalisation and disempowerment. Much in
the way the play utilises an exaggerated form of our system of capitalism, the production
also creates a potential for its narrative’s depiction of homosexuality to be read as replaying
and exaggerating the ways in which homosexuality may be considered in some areas of
mainstream, contemporary Canada. As the play’s depiction of the Wildean model and the