Theater Review: Vancouver HIV/AIDS Commemoration

Article content

Where: The Cultch Historic Theater

Tickets and information: From $29 in elcultch.com

At the end of In My Day, Rick Waines’s documentary work on the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, a character wonders: “Is it part of the collective memory?”

One of the main objectives of this work is clearly to help cement the detailed reality of from vancouver History of HIV/AIDS in our community memory. Although it spans only about 40 years, the history of HIV threatens to be obscured by more recent epidemics like COVID, as well as the relative normalization of HIV by medical advances. Based on interviews with nearly 200 people, the play uses 10 actors to give voice to some Vancouverites who survived HIV and AIDS, telling their own stories and honoring those who didn’t.

Article content

Together with choreographer Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg, Zee Zee Theater dChancellor Shawn Macdonald has created a fluid, dance-like style for the ensemble, seamlessly transitioning from one anonymous character to another. This not only works to smooth and speed up the chronological development of the script, but also gives the work has an almost celebratory quality: more commemorative than funereal.

In My Day, Rick Waines's documentary about the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, runs through December 11 at The Cultch Historic Theatre.  Photo: Sarah Race.
In My Day, Rick Waines’s documentary about the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, runs through December 11 at The Cultch Historic Theatre. Photo: Sarah Race. Photo by Sarah Race /jpg

The first half focuses on the fun side of the gay community and the youth who made Vancouver a gay party town in the 1960s and 1970s. Actor Scott Button expresses one: “When I was 10 years old, Dad said, ‘I bought you a football.’ He said, ‘I don’t want a football, I want a fondue set!’”

We hear about gay clubs like The Gandy Dancer and Celebrities, the general promiscuity, cruise, and bathrooms. We learn about indigenous gay men (nice turns by actors Cameron Peal and Kelsey Kanatan Wavey) and the risks of cruising for a person of color (by actor Alen Dominguez). We are reminded of how the integration of gay culture led to conflicts with sex workers in the West End.

Article content

“Then things started to go wrong” in the 1980s when infections of what the television network called “gay cancer” suddenly began to bloom. Fear, guilt, and recriminations about unsafe sex. The dying, including those who took their lives to “die gracefully,” and those who cared for them. The line that got the strongest reaction from the audience: “Gay white men need to know how much lesbians did for us. We owe them everything.”

In My Day, Rick Waines's documentary about the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, runs through December 11 at The Cultch Historic Theatre.  Photo: Sarah Race.
In My Day, Rick Waines’s documentary about the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver, runs through December 11 at The Cultch Historic Theatre. Photo: Sarah Race. Photo by Sarah Race /jpg

The last part of the play chronicles the growing community resistance against the demonization of HIV victims by the likes of then-Prime Minister Bill Vander Zalm.

We see the evolution of the Act Up movement, the development of AIDS Vancouver and the Dr. Peter Center as it became clear that AIDS was not a specifically gay disease but affected drug users, women and others. We keep track of new wonder drugs and their terrible side effects.

While not always elegant, the verbatim script does a good job of encompassing this complex and contentious story, with excellent work from a committed ensemble. In addition to those already mentioned, featured artists include Ivy Charles, Patti Allan, Nick Miami Benz for his elegant dance steps, along with Sabrina Symington and Jackson Wai Chung Tse. Special congratulations to Braiden Houle, who did a great job as a last-minute fill-in for Allan Morgan.

The story of HIV/AIDS has not yet come to an end. And as In My Day insists, it should not be forgotten.

Leave a Comment