Berto_Tony_201307_PhD .pdf - University of Guelph

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themes nor mounted them as broadly: Angels played in five regional theatres, practically
from coast to coast, and by 1996, Superman had played in four. By playing in regional
theatres Angels and Superman’s productions indicated a willingness by governments in
Canada (through their arts councils) to fund (at nearly the highest tier of disbursement)
theatre seasons that included overtly gay presences. These productions locate gay theatre as
no longer being only at the fringes but also in the theatrical mainstream. As the regional
theatres were originally imagined to promote cultural citizenship by creating a “national
theatre”, the production of gay plays in regional theatres may also have signalled that
gayness and gay citizenry were part of a national idea of Canada (Czarnecki 279).
Today gay presences can be found across almost all forms of theatre. For example, my
research found that the Vancouver Arts Club (a theatre at the highest level of financing in
BC) has over the last ten years programmed at one least one gay play per year (as defined
by my criteria outlined in this chapter). Similar production of gay plays can also be found
throughout most other regional theatres' programming, as well as on a wide variety of other
Canadian stages.
Gay Representation on Stage
These histories show both how the social location of gay men has evolved and, to a
degree, how staged representations of gay men parallel this evolution. For the greater part
of the last century gay representations or gay characters were coded, made invisible,
presented as abject or otherwise marginalised. These practices reflected the legal, social,
medical, religious, and commercial interests that shaped the social place of homosexuality
at the time (Clum, Still ix, 1; Sinfield, Out 32; O’Connor 9). These representations usually
did not speak to understandings that homosexuals had of themselves. Furthermore, these