Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia

Fraser, Brad

Brad Fraser

Maverick, openly gay playwright born in Edmonton, Alberta , in 1959.

In a brash, sexual and often humorously angry way, Mr. Fraser has spent much of his career to date throwing stones at the status quo. He has challenged, in interview and on stage, the establishment to change it ways from the turgid kitchen sink dramas of the 60s and 70s to something that an emerging generation of theatregoers can get their teeth into and enjoy. He has been accused of writing for an MTV/Sesame Street sensibility. He often treats the accusation as a complement and his play, Poor Super Man , most reflects his positive reaction to the attack. Like his two previous important works ( Unidentified Human Remains and the True Nature of Love and The Ugly Man), Super Man... is quick, doesn't linger on a scene, and offers nudity and sexual activity as much of its punch.

But lest Mr. Fraser's works be accused of having "no there there," one should consider the smash hit that director André Brassard made of the French translation of Unidentified... that played at the Théâtre de Quat'Sous ; the work was done virtually without nudity and was very well received by both audiences and critics for its depth and darkness.

Certainly part of Fraser's success is built on the candour and freshness with which his plays treat homosexuality. By making many of his characters sexually fluid, Mr. Fraser offers to theatregoers a different interpretation of sexual orientation; one that both delights and enrages straight and Gay spectators alike.

After participating in various Fringes and the Alberta theatre scene, Mr. Fraser hit the big time with Unidentified... in 1989 ( Alberta Theatre Projects , directed by Bob White ). The work became a sensation playing across the country and in London and Chicago. It was made into a movie by Denis Arcand in 1994.

The Ugly Man (Alberta Theatre Projects, 1990, Bob White, subsequently in Brighton, London, Edinburgh, Brussels and New York), a bleak and unpleasant piece based in tone on the renaissance revenge tragedies, pushed the edges of the envelope even further. The Montreal francophone production directed by Derek Goldby , again at the Quat'Sous, featured sodomy, oral sex and sexual urination along with generous doses of violence. It caused a stir in the Montreal artistic community about the nature of the new wave of anglo-Canadian theatre and the work was compared with the works of another playwright with a similarly jaundiced world-view, Judith Thompson whose dramas were also being played in French in Montreal at the time.

His best-received work is Poor Super Man (Ensemble Theatre, Cincinnati, 1994, Mark Mocahabee). Though not violent, the work is no less candid with Gay and straight sexual activity featured and, too, Mr. Fraser's most direct discussion of the AIDS pandemic.

Martin Yesterday (1998) has been performed in Toronto, Edmonton, Manchester (GB), and San Francisco. His adaptation of the movie Outrageous (with Joey Miller ) opened at Canadian Stage in autumn, 2000, and his commissioned work Snake in Fridge opened at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester (GB) also in the autumn, 2000. Cold Meat Party opened at the Royal Exchange in March 2003, and evoked a typically wide range of responses. Three friends, with radically dissimilar lifestyles, meet for the funeral of a mutual college friend, and demonstrate their inability to cope with their empty lives while satirizing contemporary mores in a series of one-liners. True Love Lies also premiered at the Royal Exchange in winter, 2009, continuing Fraser's fifteen year relationship with the Manchester U.K. theatre. It was nominated for best new play at the Manchester Evening News Theatre Awards. It was produced by Factory Theatre in October 2009, and has been nominated for best new production. Critic, Christopher Hoile considers it one of Fraser's best:

"Fraser has written and directed the play so much in the laugh-a-minute style of sitcoms, complete with unnaturally zingy comebacks and much-too-perfect one-liners, that one must assume he has done so consciously, in order to wrench this mindless model, along with the institution of marriage, into unfamiliar territory. In this he brilliantly succeeds, so that the play gradually morphs into a genuine human comedy on a more satisfying, more realistic, more emotional plane." (Eye Weekly 8 Oct 2009)

David W. Keeley and Andrew Craig in True Love Lies by Brad Fraser, Factory Theatre (26 Sept-1 Nov 2009).
Photo by Ed Gass-Donnelly

Brad Fraser has also written for young audiences, notably for Citadel Theatre 's Teen Festival of the Arts series: Blood Buddies (with Jeffrey Hirschfield), Young Art and Prom Night of the Living Dead (with Darrin Hagen).

He was a contributor to The National Post, considered a right-wing publication. About this he told Edmonton's Vue Magazine, in June, 2000, "...I'm really tired of preaching to the converted. I could write for a great many publications where they'd agree with everything I say. But I really want to write for the people who don't agree with everything I say."

He has also been a script writer for the TV gay sit-com, Queer as Folk.

Brad Fraser has twice received the Chalmers Award (Unidentified... and Poor Super Man) and was nominated for the Governor General's Award (Poor Super Man, 1996). He is also a five-time winner of the Alberta Culture Playwriting Competition and five-time winner of the Alberta Writers' Guild Drama Award. He also received the London Evening Standard Award for best new play and the Los Angeles Critics' Award (both for Unindentified...

His plays are published by NeWest Press and Playwrights Canada Press.

Profile by Gaetan Charlesbois and Anne Nothof

Last updated 2010-06-15