This Unknown Flesh: A Selection of Plays by Sky Gilbert

Ian C. Nelson is assistant director of libraries at the University of
Saskatchewan, and président de la Troupe du Jour, Regina Summer Stage.

Sky Gilbert is a Toronto phenomenon: playwright, poet, actor, and drag
queen extraordinaire. He is the driving force behind Buddies in Bad
Times Theatre, which styles itself as “the world’s largest
gay/lesbian/alternative arts centre.” The six plays included in this
anthology span a creative decade, 1983 to 1994, following Gilbert’s
theatre through several performance venues. The plays and Gilbert’s
peculiar vision are clearly introduced by Robert Wallace. The
punctuation of the performance dialogue “carefully adheres to the
author’s instructions.”

The selection of pieces is marvelously representative of Gilbert’s
talent. He finds inspiration in the life of gay cinéaste Pier Paolo
Pasolini, subject of two pieces bearing the theme “I met my own death
[which] was enough to give me an erection.” He is forever playing a
game of Truth or Dare, blurring boundaries of gender, sexuality, and the
acceptable. He successfully assumes a Southern Gothic voice in My Night
with Tennessee, and engages luminaries Roland Barthes and Michel
Foucault in philosophical debate, juxtaposed with explicit sex, in More
Divine. His pieces contain a number of delightful in-jokes about the
Canadian and Toronto theatre scenes. Tongue is definitely in cheek in
one instance, where a character declares to the audience that he is a
“heterosexual [actor] stretching to fit a [gay] role which is alien to
him.” The same piece slyly takes the wind out of the sails of M
Butterfly and Angels in America.

Not all of these plays are apt to be produced in mainstream regional
theatres, but this anthology should be stocked and read everywhere.
Actors will find several excellent audition monologues in its pages.