THEATRE PEOPLE: Darrin Hagen: ‘The man I am is because of the woman I was’
There was no Gay-Straight Alliance at Darrin Hagen’s high school in Rocky Mountain House in the late ‘70s – but there was a drama club. He was the only boy in the group.
“It was no problem to find an all girl play and cast me in drag,” Hagen says. “Nobody seemed to mind – and I liked it just a little too much.”
Upon getting the hell out of Dodge and into Edmonton as soon as possible, Darrin fell down a rabbit hole of emerging gay culture – and all the homophobia that came with it. In the early ‘80s, he discovered his alter-ego “Gloria” – and she’s been with us ever since, a prolific force of nature on the Edmonton theatre scene, 6’ 4” without heels.
“When I was young powerless queer, I felt powerful for the first time,” Darrin says. “It was Gloria that learned to manage the homophobia. And that helped Darrin. The man I am is because of the woman I was.”
Hagen has since become an expert on queer lore in Canada – writing numerous fact-based plays, along with the personal, sometimes tragic book detailing stories of friends he lost to the AIDS epidemic: The Edmonton Queen.
Hagen’s latest work is a new play called The Empress and the Prime Minister – opening Thursday at the Roxy on Gateway (previews start Tuesday). Hagen plays the “Empress” – aka the late “ted northe,” famed Canadian drag queen and early gay activist – whose 1967 meeting with then-Minister of Justice Pierre Trudeau (Joey Lesperance) set the stage for the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. May 18 marks the 50th anniversary of that event.
Of course equality didn’t happen overnight, and is an ongoing struggle. Hagen is currently writing another new play about an event in Edmonton’s history: The Pisces Bathhouse Raid in 1981. He also produced the similar original work Witch Hunt at the Strand in 2016 (read review) – depicting a story from 1942, when “gross indecency,” code for gay sex, was illegal. And never mind being gay; ‘impersonating a woman with intent to deceive” was against the law, too – yet often drag queens got a pass because they were obviously men dressing up as women. You know, for theatre. The law is why ted northe kept his male name. He just made it all lower case.
Back in the day, Hagen says, the only people advocating for (illegal) gay rights were female icons like Judy Garland, who were free to do so without getting arrested. These women are revered in the gay community to this day. “They were the politicians for queer people at the time,” Hagen says.
“These are real pieces of history people don’t often hear about,” he goes on. “I am determined to show how important drag has been to history of gay rights in the last 50 years – drag queens that changed the world. Because history is written mostly by straight white guys, right?”
At this rate, maybe not.
Photos by Ryan Parker
READ MORE EDMONTON THEATRE PEOPLE:
One Response to THEATRE PEOPLE: Darrin Hagen: ‘The man I am is because of the woman I was’