Theatrical rumblings at this year’s Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival prove that the queer narrative (with varying degrees of success) is shaking Alberta’s sacred ground, declaring that Canadian theater artists are not afraid to take a deep dive into the conflicts facing the LGBTQ community. Among the dozens of shows at this year’s festival, two in particular tackled stories that might make some squirm, but more importantly, unpacked themes that demand attention far beyond the theater community.
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I though this was really interesting because I never really read about a lot of new works - especially the ones that really push the audience to think, sometimes making them uncomfortable. "Scorch" is a play I would love to see, I think the concept and story are both incredibly interesting. I'd never heard of this case before reading this article, but I would really like to research it more now that I know it exists. I think "gender fraud" is so hard to categorize and I'm not sure that what Justine McNally did is illegal, seeing as they were neither man nor woman. I do agree that it was wrong and that they should have told their partner before anything happened, but I don't think they deserved to be convicted. In "Harun", I think that although his story is so different from a lot of people's, there are ways to connect to it through the confusion most LGBTQ+ people face.
There have been times as a society that we tell ourselves that we are the most well rounded, or the most well adjusted. In the current climate we live in, many of us have discovered that that is simply not the case. Instead of believing that we are the best we have turned to other countries to show us how they are the best, and this is the not way to handle things either. We all have to constantly be reflecting on the climate we live in, and working towards change. In the case of these plays, they make an attempt to hold a mirror to our society, and show us the things we don't understand, or don't feel comfortable with. Art like this is incredibly important, because historically it's helped to adjust the public thinking and normalize the things that feel foreign to us. Shows like "Angels in America" and "Rent" have historically been able to help turn around how people are thinking about issues, because they can relate to the characters. I hope that in the future people will continue making art that makes people think.
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