The AIDS factor

>> Playwright Brad Fraser discusses the effects of an epidemic upon his œuvre

Over the past decade, Brad Fraser has emerged as one of the most important new forces in Canada's theatre scene. His Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love became a massive international hit, making Time magazine's list of 1991's top 10 plays; in 1993, Quebec director and two-time Oscar-nominee Denys Arcand made Love and Human Remains for the big screen. Other noteworthy plays include Poor Super Man (which also made Time's list), The Ugly Man, Wolf Boy and Chainsaw Love. The Mirror's Matthew Hays spoke with Fraser about the effect AIDS has had on his work, the subject of his upcoming lecture.

It's odd: on the one hand AIDS is the worst thing that ever happened, but on the other hand, it's the best thing that's ever happened. Many artists--not just me, look at Tony Kushner and Larry Kramer--prior to the AIDS epidemic, we were all sort of marginalized and perhaps not as good as we are now. Having to find a way to survive the epidemic and having to find a way to get people to listen, to find a way to function every day of your life in the midst of what is a very unhealthy virus, has given a lot of artists permission to be themselves.

There's a whole artistic movement around this disease that for the most part has come from gay men. And it's created a lot of very successful, interesting and heartfelt works of art. Had AIDS never happened, I'm not entirely sure that we wouldn't be writing sensitive coming-of-age or coming-out stories. I have no idea what I'd be writing about if this disease didn't exist, because to a degree everything I write about is about the disease.

Historically, I look at this and I think our culture knew something was coming. If you look at pop culture in the early '80s, I think there was a feeling in the air. Songs like "Tainted Love" and the movie Alien--with that thing sticking that thing into people's faces and infecting them from the inside, something that killed them really violently. Or our fascination with serial killers, movies like Halloween, thrillers that are really about one irresponsible, insane member of society causing damage to so many others. When the steam engine was invented, there were any number of patents for steam-engines-in-progress, and one of them became the steam engine, but not because only one person was thinking of the steam engine, or the automobile, or whatever. Certain ideas belong to humanity because we need something like this. So it is invented; whether we create it or it's forced on us, I don't know.

I think there was something that was going on that was a warning or a precursor to what was coming. When I look at Wolf Boy, my very first professional play, I think of how it ends with blood and one character drinking another's blood and the significance that was given to blood--and I had never even heard of AIDS at that point. When I go to Human Remains, that show is talking a great deal about AIDS, but I never really discuss it beyond one character who never appears. But we always refer to who's tested positive for the virus. When you have a gay man living with a straight woman who's having a bisexual relationship and their best friend is a serial killer who's killing his sexual victims, I think it's very clear what the metaphor is. What's interesting is that I was so afraid of AIDS at that time that I couldn't face it directly. I had to turn it into metaphor.

In some way every member of this community has been stunted or mutilated by AIDS. That's not just about people dying or getting sick but about the way people behave. That's about really having to examine some of the things we've done voluntarily in the course of this plague. And how we're all in some way responsible for the spreading of this disease. I don't think there's a gay man alive who hasn't gone through some sort of version of that. When you're talking about needing to use protection every time you have sex among a group of people who have sex as often as we have sex, there are going to be a lot of people who are not safe 90 per cent of the time. I think it's interesting that some people face that choice and survive and other people face that choice and don't survive.

There's one thing that I've learned in the course of working during this epidemic: I don't think AIDS is the problem. I think AIDS is a symptom of a much larger problem that has to do with a sick society and a society that doesn't accept people who don't fit into the mainstream of its members, with the way we feel about ourselves and the way we act when we're part of that group. When you're raised in a society where you have no representation except people who are dying, how do you become a healthy person who has an agenda beyond just survival?

Fraser will deliver a lecture titled "Art From an Epidemic" Thursday, Nov. 27 in Concordia's Hall Building, Rm. 110 at 6pm. On Nov. 28 he will present the workshop "How to Write an AIDS Play in Two Hours." Time and venue to be announced. Info. 848-4234

On Saturday, Nov. 29, at 5pm, Fraser will be the guest of honour at a cocktail benefit for the ACCM at Le Lounge. $12, $15 door. Call ACCM 527-0928 for details