by Brad Fraser
This was a larger room with absolutely no light, although as my eyes adjusted I could make out dim forms. The air was oily with the smells of cock, cunt, ass, sperm and various other bodily secretions. Every imaginable kind of coupling was going on around me without regard to labels like “straight” or “gay.”
Leaning against the wall next to me was a tall, muscular man with his pants pushed down to his thighs stroking an enormous cock. I was so hard I ached, but this was AIDS central. I couldn’t tell in this light if condoms were being used, and that turned me on even more. The tall man with the giant dong lightly touched my thigh. I gathered up my last bit of self-control and hurried back to the party downstairs.
Cam arrived the next afternoon. I brought him up to date with what was happening with Tad, and they shared a quick hello through the bedroom door. Oddly, they’d never met before, although both had heard plenty about the other. Cam came with money to spend and was very generous, taking me out for meals and to clubs he’d always wanted to check out. I got him into my show the night he arrived. He was genuinely blown away by the experience.
At this time neither of us was the willowy boy we’d each been when we’d met. I was still packing an extra ten pounds at 210, and Cam had been working out and taking steroids and so was just as big. The double hide-a-bed wasn’t big enough, but we’d slept together many times over the years so it wasn’t a big deal.
Both of us were pretty drunk after a crawl through the Village and a late-night meal when we stripped to our underwear and climbed into bed. We turned our backs to one another. After a while I could tell he wasn’t sleeping.
Finally Cam said, “How does it feel?”
I rolled onto my back, got a cigarette from the coffee table and set the ashtray on the arm of the couch. “It’s a lot less glamorous than I expected—as you can tell.”
As if on cue, Tad moaned quietly in his sleep from the bedroom.
“But you’re opening a show in New York!”
I nodded.
“I can’t help being jealous.”
I nodded.
“You know—thinking what if I hadn’t become a hairdresser? What if I’d followed my dream? Maybe it’d be me here.”
“You make amazing money. You have lots of friends and a boyfriend.”
“I know,” Cam said. “But everyone’s talking about you in Canada. You’re in the news all the time.”
“And I’m living in a squalid Times Square apartment sharing a hide-a-bed with a girlfriend while another one croaks in the bedroom.”
He took the cigarette from me and inhaled deeply. I gaped. He’d quit smoking years ago. He waved my concern off casually and handed the smoke back to me. “I just needed a drag.”
“Why?”
“I have AIDS.”
I’d known what he was going to say before he said it but it still made my eyes sting.
“It’s why I left Edmonton.”
I sat up in the bed. “You’ve known that long?”
“Oh yeah. I was one of the first guys diagnosed. But I never told anyone.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t want it to be what I’m about. I planned to tell people if I got sick and they had to know, but I didn’t get sick so…”
I put my arm around him and he leaned back into my shoulder. “Are you getting sick now?”
“I had a lung problem a few months ago and my viral count is high. I’m going on some new meds when I get home.” There was a moment of silence, and then Cam said, “I’m pretty sure I got it from Benny.”
I wondered how many people had been infected by the well-travelled Benny and, again, why I hadn’t.
After a few minutes he pulled away. I could tell he was crying, so I put one hand on his shoulder and just left it there. I took a long, angry drag on my cigarette and listened to the sibilant sizzle of the tobacco and paper burning.
In the bedroom, delirious Tad called out for his lover and whimpered.
Tad recovered and they both left two days later. I did my best to launder everything and air out the apartment, grateful to be on my own again.
* * *
—
As we got closer to opening, the show started to come together. Derek was very good with notes on the actors’ performances and speaking to them in a way that was always challenging but enlightening. There was a buzz around town about the show, but it wasn’t all positive. Even before opening there were whispers that the show was homophobic, misogynist and unnecessarily brutal.
My schedule had amped up considerably, with meetings, interviews and photo shoots occupying most days. A number of agents had seen the show and wanted to meet with me, as well as a few film producers. Everyone was interested to see the response when it opened. I did my best to be authentic and charming in every meeting and interview. I’d learned something about handling the press, and I didn’t want to antagonize anyone needlessly. I bit my tongue whenever I wanted to make a smartass, glib quip. The image I projected was urbane and edgy, even if inside I might’ve felt like a hick kid from the country.
As I was leaving a preview one day, Michael Frazier, the main producer, called me over. He was standing with two handsome, rich-looking middle-aged gay men. Michael said, “Brad, I want you to meet my friend Michael—”
“Michael Cristofer,” I said, taking the hand of the man he indicated and shaking it vigorously. I knew exactly who he was. “Author of The Shadow Box. I’m so pleased to meet you.”
Michael Cristofer introduced me to his partner. They both said encouraging things about the play. I said, “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. Your play was a huge stylistic influence on this one.”
He gave me a sardonic smile and said archly, “It certainly was.”
I was horrified that he might think I’d plagiarized something from his show. He laughed to let me know he was joking and said, “You took it much further than I did. Congratulations.”
He was charming and supportive and I was glad I had met him. All playwrights echo within one another.
Every few days I’d call Shain. He was getting production inquiries from Britain, Japan, Italy and other countries.
A number of friends from Edmonton came to the opening, although there was no Canadian press at the show. Randy wasn’t able to come, although he did send flowers. Everyone was keyed up and excited to be at an actual opening in NYC and wore their very best. I wore a black T-shirt, jeans, boots and my leather jacket, as it was now September and the city had cooled considerably. I was glad my Edmo homies had made it and took great pride in introducing them to the cast and crew.
There was a poncy after-party at an East Village restaurant, and the publicist took me around the room and introduced me to everybody. The real standouts for me were famed drag queen Hedda Lettuce; Michael Musto, who was a long-time writer for the Village Voice; and playwright/actor/drag performer/national gift Charles Busch, whose subversive off-Broadway cult hits I’d been reading about for years.
The crowning meeting of the night, though, was being introduced to Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant and queer icon. I truly was meeting a legend. He held his hand out and I wasn’t sure whether to shake it or kiss it so I just kinda touched it with my hand and asked the one question I never ask anyone at an opening party: “Did you like the show?”
Mr. Crisp said, “Oh no. No, not at all. Far too scary for me. All that blood and sex. No. No.”
I said, “O-kay. Thanks for your candour.”
He smiled and leaned in, putting his hand on my shoulder. “You’re from Edmonton, Alberta, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you by chance know a Ronnie Wigmore?”
I looked at him in shock. “Yes! I’ve done a couple of shows with Ron at the Walterdale. He’s the voice announcing the beginning of the show and the en
d of intermission at the Jubilee Auditorium, Edmonton’s largest touring theatre. Why?”
“I knew him in London years ago. He was a mod. Oh, we got up to some fun, Ronnie and I.”
My jaw must have dropped. The Ron Wigmore I knew was a rotund middle-aged man with a red face and thinning hair, affable and a bit of a ham, happily married with a daughter.
“Do say hi to him for me, would you? We had such fun,” Crisp repeated, then turned back to his companion.
Sometime later I saw Ron Wigmore at some theatre function and related this encounter to him. His face flushed nearly purple and he laughed with an infectious, plosive surprise, slapping my shoulder too hard and whispering in my ear, “We all sowed our wild oats, my friend. That’s what being young is for.”
Someone invited me into the bathroom. We smoked something I drunkenly thought was pot but suspect was actually crack and I was off my nut for the rest of the night. Thankfully my Edmo friends knew how to get me home before things got messy.
I was slated to fly out mid-afternoon the next day. I was hungover when I woke up and grumpy. When I met the Edmo gang for breakfast I made it clear I was not reading the reviews and there would be no talk of the show. I wanted to leave New York and this experience feeling good about both. The reviews could wait a day or two while I recovered.
PART THREE
THE UGLY MAN
THE NEW YORK REVIEWS FOR Remains, particularly from the dailies, were not great. While certain elements of the show were praised, other elements left the reviewers cold. The New York Times didn’t like it at all, which would remain true of everything I wrote after. The weeklies and glossies were kinder. The Time magazine review that came out in the second week was a rave, and later in the year Remains would be in their top ten plays of the year.
The Canadian press seemed to take delight in the less-than-laudatory reception the play was getting, giving birth to a number of articles dedicated to why it wasn’t a hit. The Globe and Mail, true to form, ran a blurb about the opening and identified me as Bud Fraser.
The producers were committed to making it work and spent money on promotion to counteract the more hostile reviews. I found many of those reviews had a patronizing “isn’t it cute when Canadians write about sex” tone that said more about American hang-ups than ours. Ticket sales were brisk for the first five weeks, then began to drop off. A couple of cast members left and were replaced by actors who turned out to be every bit as good as the people they’d replaced.
It was announced that I was one of the winners of Toronto’s prestigious Chalmers Award for best new play. The prize included a couple of nights at a good hotel, a celebratory dinner and a cash prize of $10,000. (Cash has always been my favourite prize.) The award got the show more international attention but didn’t help much in Manhattan.
Remains got through nearly three months of performances before quietly closing. Late in the run, the producers had called Shain and told him they wouldn’t be able to continue running the show if they were required to pay me the very small amount I was receiving weekly. They could run the show for a couple more months if I’d give up my royalties. No one else was being asked to defer their livelihood to keep the show running, so I declined. After the show closed Stomp moved into the theatre and ran for years. Oh, to have had that sort of success in New York.
Because the show closed just shy of the deadline that would’ve given the producers a major slice of my rights to Remains, I came out retaining full ownership. This would prove crucial if I were to find myself negotiating film rights. I’d been talking to potential producers from the moment the show opened in New York, and their interest wasn’t at all dulled by the mixed reviews. The filmic possibilities were inherent in the play from the very beginning.
Before I left New York I met with a few producers’ representatives who wanted to buy me lunch at some swank restaurant I mostly felt uncomfortable in and blow smoke up my ass, which I was also uncomfortable with. When I got home, Shain was constantly calling me to hook up introductory calls with studio reps. My fave conversation made the subtext of nearly every discussion I’d had so far vividly clear:
Producer—“Hey, Brad, it’s [NAME REDACTED]. I produce for [STUDIO REDACTED] and I just want to say I saw the show in New York and I was blown away, man.”
Me—“Thanks, [NAME REDACTED]. Nice of you to say so.”
Producer—“It’s so now, you know. I mean it’s really in the zeitgeist—serial killers, prostitutes, urban legends, it is today.”
Me—“Thanks.”
Producer—“I see this film, Brad. I see it. And it’s a money-maker. But there’s just one thing, Brad.”
Me—“What’s that?”
Producer—“Hey, I’m an open-minded guy. Maybe I’ve even, you know, walked on the wild side or something. But we’re talking money here so I’m just going to ask—how would you feel if we made David straight?”
I paused, not because I was considering anything but because I wanted him to think about what he’d just said.
Producer—“You there, Brad?”
Me—“I am.”
Producer—“I’ve offended you.”
Me—“You’ve made it clear why you’re not the person for this film.”
I thanked him for his interest and hung up the phone.
I hated, HATED, the erasure of queer people by the majority on any level, and making David straight would be the most profound betrayal I could inflict on queer people. If David couldn’t be gay, there would be no movie.
* * *
—
Another afternoon Shain rang me and said, “Denys Arcand wants to talk to you.”
There was a flutter of excitement in my belly. I’d loved Jesus of Montreal and had great respect for The Decline of the American Empire. Arcand was an internationally recognized director and a Palme d’Or winner. He seemed the perfect fit for the Remains adaptation. I couldn’t wait to speak with him and told Shain to give him my number. Shain also revealed that despite its short run in New York, Remains was being picked up in a great many other places.
I was having lunch with Pete one day as I related all of this to him. He shook his head in disbelief.
I said, “It’s really happening. The play’s a worldwide hit.”
He said, “Be careful. You know what they say about being at the top.”
“I get it,” I said. “Nothing lasts forever. Just give me ten years. That’s all I ask.”
He smiled, but behind it I could see that flare of resentment I’d been seeing in the eyes of many of my peers around Edmonton. When the play had been listed in Time’s top ten it had made national news and I was getting calls to appear on pop-culture commentary panels on various TV and radio stations. I did everything I was asked to do with good humour. It rarely paid, but I was usually promoting a project of my own and it helped my profile. I was known as a good guest, articulate, blunt and often humorous. I was the right gay dude with an attitude and edge at the right time.
Denys and producer Roger Frappier flew me to Montreal for a couple of days, wining, dining and charming me with their plans for the film. They wanted me to write the screenplay and they wanted to honour the production they’d seen at Quat’Sous. By the time I’d flown back home Shain had started negotiating a contract.
Movie contracts are a nightmare of minutiae and theoreticals; the one thing I insisted on was retaining the rights to the play. The film had a very healthy budget for the time and I was well paid, but it wasn’t enough to get me to share or sign over the stage rights. The production company agreed and the deal was signed.
Denys Arcand is one of the most articulate, charming, talented people I have ever met. As I wrote the script over the next six months, he would make frequent encouraging phone calls, offering all sorts of helpful suggestions to make it more filmic.
In early December I flew to Calgary a
s we started rehearsals at ATP for The Ugly Man. Casting the show had been problematic because of the commitment and location. This was often the case when casting on the prairies, where the actor pool was more limited. The cast were a mixed lot, although Pete stood out as the damaged brother with the cleft palate. After the first week I was no longer required, so I flew back to Edmonton to continue to work on the Remains screenplay.
Shortly after New Year’s, Pete phoned me. He was sobbing and said some words that made no sense at all. I tried to suck air into my lungs. My eyes hurt.
“What did you say?”
“There was a house fire. Susan died.”
Even with so many gay men dying around me, Susan Wright’s accidental death in Stratford was still beyond shocking. She’d come home late one night and fallen asleep on a daybed on the main floor. A space heater had been too close to the blankets. Her parents, who were visiting, died in the same fire. The community was stunned. Brent was stricken. Canadian theatre had lost one of its most amazing talents.
It was a terrible way to bring in 1992.
* * *
—
That January, Playboy listed the Chicago production of Remains in its year-end roundup of sex in the media, which pleased me more than most of the awards the show had won.
The Ugly Man was just about to go into tech when I returned to Calgary. That year, all the shows were done on a thrust stage (protrudes into the audience, who sit on three sides of the stage), which worked well considering the show’s Jacobean source material. Bob kept the pace moving along nicely and had a good time with the murders, which were as graphic as the show would get. The reviewer for the Calgary Herald wrote, “I have seen the future of English-Canadian theatre and it is Brad Fraser.”
On my return home it was publicly announced that the Remains movie would be made by Denys Arcand. It was big news. The British production of the play, featuring Dougray Scott as David, produced by the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh and then transferred to the highly respected Hampstead Theatre in London, was a huge hit and generated a lot of buzz. It would eventually win me a London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright, putting me in the company of my hero Joe Orton, who had won the Best Play award twenty-odd years earlier. Around the same time, a Japanese production opened in Tokyo, so the play was all over the news. All this offset the overall reaction to The Ugly Man, which, as I’d expected, was criticized for not having any “likeable” characters.
