A PLAYWRIGHT’S PASSION
Jordan Tannahill’s Late Company deals with issues close to his heart,
Jordan Tannahill is a man in motion.
The 27-year-old playwright/filmmaker/director was in Toronto a few weeks ago, then Montreal, then Liverpool and, by the time we caught up with him, he was briefly in London before heading off to Europe.
“I feel like I want to be a nomad for a while,” said Tannahill over the din of a British coffee bar.
“I want to do some soul-searching about the kind of person I am, the kind of artist I am.”
But while the man himself may be hard to nail down, you can see an excellent example of his work at the Theatre Centre, where Late Company is being presented until Nov. 29.
The hard-hitting drama was seen here briefly at SummerWorks in 2013, and since then it’s enjoyed acclaim in Vancouver and Winnipeg, with productions across Canada scheduled for 2016 and beyond. Tannahill also won the Governor General’s Award for English-language drama in 2014.
And although a lot of his work is presented in unique venues (such as his own art space, Videofag, in Kensington Market) Late Company strikes at the heart of Tannahill’s work despite its more conventional format. “I self-identify as a queer artist,” he said. “It’s a concern that infuses all of my work, as does my pas- sion for social issues.”
Both of them come to the fore in this script, which tells the story of a gay teen who killed himself after being bullied extensively. His parents invite the ringleader of the bullying and his parents to dinner and what happens is as powerful as you can imagine.
“It was inspired by the suicide of Jamie Hubley,” said Tannahill, speaking of the 15-year-old Ottawa boy, son of a city councillor, who killed himself in 2011 after being ha- rassed mercilessly by his peers.
“Sadly, it’s hardly a unique case. But I was drawn to it because of our shared background. His parents could have very easily been friends of my parents.”
Tannahill was raised in Ottawa as well and recalls “being bullied quite a lot, long before high school. I was someone who read as gay and that opened me up to a degree of violence. I would be harassed just standing at a suburban bus shelter, coming home from a rehearsal.”
He laughs ruefully. “I was fortunate I went to an arts high school, because when I came out at 14 in Grade 9, I had braces and acne and horrible pompadour hair, and wore blouses and print pants. I was quite the fashion crime. But I was exploring the boundaries of my self-expression, pushing them as far as I could express.
“I still do that today, but I do it in my work.
“It was quite a process to come out to some of my family because they were quite devoutly Christian,” Tannahill recalled.
“But to their credit, they were accepting of me . . . in stages.
“My mother was always great but, to be totally frank, some of what is said by the visiting couple in the play are things that have been said by my family, or from my parents’ friends, or my mother’s book club. All those subtle hypocrisies, those scathing lines spit under their breath.”
Even with recent growing acceptance of LGBT people, “It’s going to be a long road,” Tannahill said. “In some of the countries I’ve travelled in recently, it would be extremely controversial to produce this show. Even in other parts of Canada.
“I forget how much of a bubble we live in sometimes in Toronto. To be queer in this city is not necessarily a renunciation of traditional values. I think this is a place where everything can coexist equally.” Late Company is at the Theatre Centre, 1115 Queen St. W. until Nov. 29. Call 416-538-0988 or go to tickets.theatrecentre.org for tickets.