Homo trio

>> Out Productions offers a trinity of short plays at Divers/Cité

by AMY BARRATT

Pierre Trudeau, the Pope, Dorothy Arzner, lesbian film director of the '30s and '40s. These are just a few of the characters Out Productions will be submitting for our consideration in the next year.

Montreal's only queer, bilingual theatre company is participating in this year's Gay Pride festivities with a program of three short plays-in-progress by emerging playwrights titled Untitled. The program will be presented tonight (Aug. 3) through Saturday at Buddy's piano lounge in the gay village.

The three new plays are the result of a call for submissions of 20-minute theatre pieces that Out Productions sent out last year. There were no restrictions and few guidelines. The company only suggested that writers might seek inspiration in "gay Canadian heroes, real or imagined." Leave it to the imagination of a queer playwright to take that and come up with Trudeau, or the Pope.

Calling the evening Untitled is not a cop-out but a deliberate choice, according to one of Out's two artistic directors.

"There are some things in life that cannot and will not be labelled," explains David Allan King. "There are similarities with the gay community. It's very easy to pigeon-hole them as a 'segment' of society, but are they? Can we call an artist a drag queen when she really wants to be called a female impersonator?"

Meanwhile, the three plays all have very catchy titles. There's Baroness Medea at the Gates of Hell by Cameron Groves, Dancing With a Saint by A.J. Buist, and We're No Angels by David Bonk.

Groves used to live in Montreal before defecting to Toronto. He is also the author of The Tragic History of ZsaZsa Vroom.

Buist writes in his bio that he "has been published several times (twice) in The Globe and Mail, but only because he assumed the name of a well-known author and wrote the article backwards, in iambic pentameter with rhyming couplets." Dancing With a Saint is "his first play to be produced by human beings."

Bonk previously penned the Seinfeld parody Jairy's Sign Fell Down--Again, seen at this year's Fringe. We're No Angels is not to be confused with the Bogart movie of the same name or the De Niro remake.

The troupe of actors brought together to perform the plays includes Brian Wrench, Jacques Viau, Wilfrid Dubé, Rebecca Singh, Sasha Roiz and Christopher Freeman.

Out Productions has been struggling to survive since its inception in 1996, but despite virtually non-existent financial resources, the little company has produced some memorable moments, notably their French-language adaptation of Martin Sherman's Bent. Having been promised a Canada Council grant to produce Camera, Woman, R.M. Vaughan's play about Arzner next season, co-directors King and Robert Simard are daring to dream. Camera, Woman will be a co-production with Sin 4 Productions, the company that brought you Looking for Romeo at last year's Gay Pride and will likely be associated with Divers/Cité.

In addition, King himself is working on an anthology of coming-out stories called Out of Province. Based on interviews from all 10 provinces, it is conceived as a theatre piece, but will be presented on the Internet. King is looking at Christmas or New Year's as a launch date.

Untitled at Buddy's (1003 Ste-Catherine E.), until Aug. 5, 6pm (happy hour). Suggested contribution: $5