The Saints and Apostles

David E. Kemp is chair of the Drama Department at Queen’s University
and author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

This contemporary love story was partly developed, from an original
monologue, at the Banff Playwrights Colony and first performed before
the public as part of the Buddies in Bad Times “4-Play” Festival in
1990. The “workshopping” process that the play underwent ultimately
earned it a Dora Mavor Moore Award nomination in 1990 and the Elizabeth
Sterling Haynes Award for Outstanding New Play (1991-92).

It is easy to understand why this moving story about fear of intimacy
should have been so honored. It is a deeply empathetic examination of
modern relationships and the power (and limitations) of love. One of the
things that makes the play so appealing is its refusal to be
pigeonholed. It is neither a purely gay love story nor an optimistic
AIDS “comedy.” The questions the play asks are not those we expect.
Actor/director/playwright Storey leads us into some surprising
territory.