Peter Dickinson, C.E. Gatchalian, Kathleen Oliver, and Dalbir Singh, eds., Q2Q: Queer Canadian Theatre and Performance: New Essays on Canadian Theatre, Volume 8

Abstract

I begin my review in the same way Evalyn Parry begins the essay “Re: Form: (An Informal Set List of Considerations)” in this volume for two reasons. The first is because it’s equally true of this project, having never written a formal book review before and balking at the idea of writing this in anything but my queer tongue. The second is that this sentence fragment distills the productive fragmentation pervading this volume. A perusal of the essay titles demonstrates a community, or collection of communities, coming to terms with the tensions and struggles both within the myriad positionalities under the queer umbrella and between these and the larger cisheteropatriarchal Canada: “Constituting Community” (Stephen Low); “Queer Insularity” (Sean Metzger); “Proudly Welcoming” (Laine Zisman Newman); “Divisions Within” (T. Berto); “Productive Contrary” (Spy Dénommé-Welch).