Radical Perversions: Two Dyke Plays

Judith Rudakoff is an associate professor of Theatre at York University
and Literary Manager at Theatre Passe Muraille.

Butler is a forthright and outspoken playwright who hails from Cape
Breton Island and now makes Toronto her home. Her plays resound with the
overwhelming necessity to reshape traditional and conventional values to
encompass and embrace what for too long has remained marginalized.
Tolerance of gay men and of lesbians by “straight” society, the
plays suggest, is condescending. Acceptance is patronizing. Instead,
Butler’s plays and her vibrant characters present the quotidian of the
gay lifestyle in all its robust and ribald reality.

“Black Friday?” on the surface, is a tale of the prodigal daughter
returning home. It quickly turns more Grimm than Aesop, with revelations
about each family member: the aunt who’s really the mother; the friend
who’s really the lover; the hero father who’s really a derelict.

“Claposis” (the title refers to a phenomenon in which waves meet)
presents a matrix of emotion and activity. Through the overlapping and
intertwining of three women’s lives, Butler brings into sharp relief
the poignant themes of truth in a false society, ideal relationships in
an all-too-real world, and the need to take full responsibility for
one’s own life as a prerequisite to gaining full control.

In both plays, Butler’s call for dignity that is neither aligned with
nor tied to gender or hierarchy is empowering.