OUTzone talks to Playwright Adam Bock!

October 13, 2006

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OZ: A lot of playwrights object to being labeled as a “gay playwright.” How do you feel about it?
People have asked, and they’re like, "Do you mind if I call you a gay playwright,” and I’m like No, I don’t mind. I’m gay and I’m a playwright. And then I start thinking about it and it’s kind of insulting that people would think that it would even be insulting. I’m a gay playwright. I like being called a gay playwright. It’s who I am. It’s how I write. I have a very specific take on the world because I’m gay.

I’m an upper middle class white guy. And I’ve had all the opportunities in the world you can have. I have a strong family, I went to great schools, I have all the privileges that come with that. And then at other times, I’m a gay man, and people think they can say what they want about me and treat me any way they want. And I mean, colossally rude things. And I’m Canadian, so rude is, you know, an insult. It’s rude for anybody to suggest that I shouldn’t label myself as who I am. Screw you if you think I shouldn’t be identified that way, if you think that lessens me in any way, because I don’t believe that it does. I’m not having it.

OZ: It sounds like you believe that theater is a political medium?
Yes, of course. Actually, it’s a dangerous one because it’s live, it’s uncontrollable. You don’t know who’s listening, and you don’t have any control over who’s talking, and the people who are doing it are usually so poor that they’re not totally bound to capitalism. There’s an endless desire to make us behave like capitalists, and a complete resistance on the part of theater artists to do it properly.

I’m trying to be a capitalist. I’m trying to work my way up, do all the things you’re supposed to do as a person working in this system and yet at the same time, it’s impossible to do that because in order to make theater, so many people have to do it basically for free. Or a lot of it for free. You know, a play of mine, I might work a year on it, and then I might make two thousand dollars. So, that’s silly, for one.

At the same time, what it does, is that it frees me from the idea that someone is paying me to do it, so the only value we get from it is to tell actually the truth. The history of theater is that it constantly gets banned when people are trying to have control, because it’s an uncontrollable thing.

OZ: What made you become a playwright?
In third grade, these girls were doing “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” and they made me an oompa-loompa. And I think I was insulted by that. So I went home and wrote my version of “James and the Giant Peach” and I made myself James and then I cast it and directed it. My cousin played the centipede, and these two girls I knew played the aunts, and we did the play.

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