The Empress and the Prime Minister a gripping gay docu-drama
Darrin Hagen refuses to be catalogued. The actor, playwright, sound designer, composer and director has energized our theatre scene since his first play The Edmonton Queen premiered at the 1996 Fringe. Although he may be associated with gay theatre, his subject matters have ranged through a bewildering number of topics – and along the way he has picked up seven Sterling Awards and numerous nominations.
As a comic writer Hagen has made us laugh with flamboyant characters, many produced by the company he founded, Guys in Disguise. He has also penned serious plays such as Witch Hunt at the Strand (2016) in which he bristled about the 1942 persecution of Edmonton’s gay community by city police and the RCMP, and proved again that his advocacy for the gay community did not interfere with his ability to create real dimensional characters in a gripping docu-drama.
His latest work turns again to history: The Empress & The Prime Minister, having its world premiere at the Roxy on Gateway Theatre to help mark the 50th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexuality in Canada. It will run through May 5.
It’s a story that has remained a minor historical footnote, but with this play the playwright shines a light on a fascinating tale. The intermission-less 90 minutes is often a hoot but it is also a gripper and, oh my, Hagen is a storyteller. He also plays the drag queen ted northe (“The Empress,” who always used lower-case lettering). The evening could easily have slipped over into dullness, but Hagen keeps both the humour and dramatic elements at the boil.
At one point the playwright observes, “England is a lot more gay then here. And they sure know how to treat a Queen.”
Northe is told that the revolution is coming.
“The revolution? I must dress,” he breathlessly announces and rushes off to get the proper outfit for a revolution.
Mr. ted northe was a well-know Canadian drag queen and a leader in the long, arduous fight for gay rights. In his early years, as a young gay trying to find a place where he could fit in, he moved to Los Angeles where he became the boy toy of a Catholic Monsignor (Joey Lesperance). Reacting to the hypocrisy of the church and its unbending attitude toward gays – “You can leave the church but you can never leave being a queer” – he moved on, eventually to Vancouver.
During the ‘60s, northe spearheaded a national letter-writing campaign to MPs, urging the removal of homosexuality from the Criminal Code. One man heard him in Ottawa. At the time, Pierre Trudeau (Lesperance again) was an idealistic young Justice Minister, and the future Prime Minister grew to know and respect the tenacity of northe. Trudeau oversaw a series of radical changes to the Criminal Code. His reforms ended some of the onerous strictures against homosexuality, leading to his ringing 1967 declaration, “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.”
At one point an unimpressed northe grouses, “Politics is just show business for ugly people.”
After the bill passed, the Prime Minister immediately called northe and began with the words, “Your majesty…” a direct reference to northe’s alter-ego drag queen title – the Empress of Canada. Their relationship continued for many years. In 2009, they were both among the first five inductees into the Canadian Q Hall of Fame.
What a story and what fun Hagen has with it. He starts off in full drag miming to Anne Murray’s Snowbird while managing to snuff out a number of prop birds. He then begins a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress that leads him to Trudeau, and the seat of Canadian political power. Lesperance is a find playing both the Monsignor and the sophisticated and droll future Prime Minister. When a member of Parliament confronts Trudeau and accuses him of being gay, the PM snaps, “Why don’t you leave me with your wife for a few hours… (and then ask her).”
Lesperance also delivers a captivating turn in drag as Mama Jose, singing an entire aria from Carmen in falsetto.
The production is directed by Bradly Moss who displays his usual sympathy for character, and deep understanding of the dramatic and humorous underpinnings of the story.
We owe a debt to Darrin Hagen for reminding us that it wasn’t so long ago that our gay community braved curses, actual physical dangers and incarceration just for being who they are. Things are better now, but we only have to read the papers to realize that the battle continues.
Photos by Ian Jackson
