More With Brad Fraser
Here is part two of my interview with playwrite Brad Fraser, known for creating controversial, sexually-charged works.
Kirman: Do you still find that there is a lot of negativity directed towards your work like for example what happened with Poor Superman, and if so how do you deal with it now?
Fraser: I think there's more negativity directed towards my work now than there ever has been. To a large degree it's happened because I have become a successful writer, and as soon as you become a successful writer suddenly everyone is there with their little guns, telling you that you're not a very good writer at all. Many people say that's a Canadian thing but I don't think that it's just a Canadian thing, I think it's quite an international thing. How I look at it and how I deal with it -- it's a challenge. I have to prove to these people that they are wrong and if ever I am working and I am not being challenged -- and the few times I have done shows that haven't been challenged in some ways they haven't been very successful -- then I probably am not doing it right. I tend to look at that negative reaction as a positive thing. If I get a really bad review from some middle class intellectual reviewed in the Globe and Mail I don't look at that as a bad thing, despite the fact that everyone else in the theatre world might, I look at that as being a very positive thing because if I am offending that kind of person then I am doing my job right.
A lot of writers look at that and they go, 'Oh my God, I must be failing because I am not making these people happy, they don't like what I am doing," but my intention has really never been to make those particular people happy. In some cases, like with Martin Yesterday, that play's not even written . . . when I wrote that play I knew there were a great many people in the world who were not going to like it. But that doesn't mean you don't write to. In fact, to me, that means it's an even bigger reason to write it because the challenge is big and because to talk about unpleasant things invites a lot of criticism and reaction and that doesn't make them less important, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't be writing about them.
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