PLAY AIMS TO END STIGMA
A frank and funny look at sex and disability
In Kelsey Culbert’s fantasy, she meets a guy in a bar. He’s dreamy, an engineer who loves to travel. When he brings her a drink, there’s a straw in it — she didn’t even have to ask.
Culbert, who uses a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy, wonders, “Is this the guy I’ve been waiting for my whole life?”
That night, she has sex for the first time with her perfect man.
This is fiction, a scene in Listen to Dis Community Arts Organization’s newest play, Mine to Have: Sensuality and Circumstances.
But it’s based on fact.
“(My) parents always said, ‘Nono-no, you can’t have sex,’ and, ‘No-no-no, you’ll never be able to do that,’ ” Culbert explained after a recent rehearsal at The Artesian.
“They’re just saying that, because of my disability, it’s not possible.”
The theatre collective known as The Other Ordinary produced its first play three years ago.
Neither Heroes Nor Ordinary People debunked the stereotypes many people have about people with disabilities — that they’re heroic just for getting out of bed in the morning, or that they have different desires than non-disabled people.
That theme carries through in Mine to Have, which premieres next week as part of the Globe Theatre’s Shumiatcher Sandbox Series.
“Sex, sex, seeeeeeex,” Natasha Urkow laments in the opening monologue.
“It’s everywhere, but it’s not for me anymore. I’m broken now. Sex? I can’t … You get used to it. Abstinence. Avoidance.”
There’s a perception that disabled people don’t have sex, or sexual desires or romantic thoughts.
“Puppies, not porn. Candy, not blow jobs.”
But it’s not true.
That’s what this play is all about.
Eight actors explore love, sex and relationships. They discuss makeup and lingerie, and the related challenges of relying on lazy or styleless home-care workers.
(“I have caregivers that dress me like Mimi” from The Drew Carey Show, said Culbert.)
Sometimes it’s funny. Sometimes it’s harsh — like when Urkow’s character reams out Donny Ready’s after approaching her in a bar.
When the non-disabled guy calls her “cute” and asks her out, she is not flattered.
“I am paralyzed, you a--hole!” she exclaims, after filling him in on some of the not-cute things about her, like having to wear adult diapers or use a straw to eat yogurt.
These scenes are inspired by the actors’ real-life experiences, including John Loeppky’s relationship with Karlee Rabby, who is stage-managing this production.
In a way, their relationship planted the seed for writing this show.
As director Traci Foster describes it, while Loeppky and Rabby were falling in love, some “well-intended family members” suggested they maybe shouldn’t date.
“I’m watching this and thinking about the political right of being in your body and having a sensual and sexual life,” said Foster, meantime “hearing these stories that suggest that people who are doing their master’s (degrees) and other things are being told to stay away from one of the most human things in the world.”
Rabby received two different types of reactions when she started dating Loeppky.
“It was either like, ‘Good job,’ or it was like, ‘But does his penis work?’ ” Rabby said, laughing.
Meanwhile, “Karlee will quite often be mistaken for my caregiver as opposed to my significant other,” said Loeppky. “I jokingly say sometimes that this theatre company is a harem: People seem to think that I am married to everybody in a wheelchair in this company whenever we’re out.”
Rabby is often mistaken for a devotee, Foster added — someone with a fetish for disabled people.
“Yeah, I’m not,” Rabby confirmed, laughing again. “Apparently that’s like the next logical thought process. … No, I like him because he’s John, not because he’s in a wheelchair.”
While producing Neither Heroes Nor Ordinary People, which also had a Globe Theatre run in September 2016, Nicole Bear said the non-disabled people involved in the show were “floored” by their everyday experiences.
Like, one time Urkow and Maria Doyle were at a bar, and a guy poked his finger into Urkow’s thigh and asked, “Can you feel that?”
Maybe it was an honest question and he was blunt enough — or drunk enough — to ask.
Doyle said Mine to Have will give people the chance to learn without having to ask the awkward questions.
“People are curious,” Doyle said, using an analogy that elicited giggles from her castmates: “You see a tall person and a short person walking together and you wonder, ‘How’s that work?’ That’s a normal curiosity. But you simply don’t ask that.”
“The great thing about this show is that it really does show the commonality amongst people,” added Ready.
Foster points out that “disability culture is the only culture that anyone on this planet could become a part of, at any given moment of any given day, without a choice in that.”
That’s what happened to Urkow, who broke her neck and back in a car crash when she was 18.
But even though the collective is driven by art, Foster said there remains a patronizing attitude of, “Oh, isn’t that nice, you’re getting together to do some work.”
The collective is made up of actors and writers, who are also disability culture advocates.
“Disability culture is actually not really understood that well in our province — it could be argued in our country — so I feel really excited about the young artists and the up-and-coming artists representing that in the way that we are,” said Foster.
“These conversations are happening in places like Vancouver and Toronto, but it’s not something that Saskatchewan thinks of,” Loeppky said.
Even so, according to Listen to Dis board member Carla Harris, the Regina collective is doing something new as it prepares for a five-city tour of Neither Heroes Nor Ordinary People in September.
“I’ve not found any theatre group in Canada that sends people with disabilities on the tours,” said Harris.
“The touring cast is always whoever can travel for the cheapest cost. So this is immense.”
Ammanda Zelinski and Tori Lougheed round out the cast of Mine to Have, which premieres Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at The Artesian.
Thursday’s 7:30 p.m. performance will include an American Sign Language interpretation.
Friday and Saturday shows (June 22 and 23) are at 8 p.m.
For tickets, visit globetheatrelive.com.