Johnnie Walker and The Heterosexuals

6 Nov 2022 - photos supplied by Johnnie Walker

"Heterosexuality is the greatest threat to peace, happiness, and good taste the world has ever known⁠—and yet we never talk about it," says Johnnie Walker. "It's the perennial elephant in the room. I think it's high time we break the stigma and have a real open discussion about what heterosexuality is, where it comes from, and what we can all do to prevent it. Theatre felt like the perfect medium for me to explore these ideas because of the way it can feel like a direct conversation between the performer and the audience. To be clear: it is not actually a conversation, only I am talking, the audience will be expected to keep it zipped for the duration, but it still feels like a conversation to me."

Johnnie Walker (Shove It Down My Throat, The Love Crimes of Frances Lark) is bringing his hit Edmonton Fringe show The Heterosexuals to his hometown. And he is very happy to talk about the show, heterosexuals, homosexuals, camp, satire, closets and the ecstatic joy of theatre.

Drew Rowsome: What do you hope audiences experience during The Heterosexuals? What do you hope they learn from it? 

Johnnie Walker: Catharsis! This is a show about finally saying all the things queer people think about the straights but would never reveal in mixed company. But ultimately, it's also a show about empathy; about realigning the magnetic poles of main character energy and being playful about things like who gets to centre themselves in a narrative and which perspectives get to declare themselves the factory default settings for humanity. 

Though they make up an insignificant sliver of the theatrical audience, what do you think heterosexuals will glean from The Heterosexuals? 

Johnnie Walker: Ideally, they will discover that heterosexuality isn't real and that they were actually lesbians all along. Failing that, I hope they enjoy being roasted⁠—a good chunk of the show is a just a roast of heterosexuality⁠—but I think that most people with intelligence and taste and a sense of humour actually love to be roasted, provided it's done with care and with intention beyond pure cruelty, which is not my vibe.

How does one go about researching heterosexuals? Do you feel you have a better understanding of them? How much compassion did it take? 

Johnnie Walker: I think that we all wind up researching them, whether we like it or not! As much as progress has been made, we still live in a world of presumed cis-heteronormativity. You're straight until proven queer. And most of the stories that we tell in our culture privilege a hetero point of view by default. Straightness declares itself to be the factory default setting in the same way that maleness does, or that whiteness does. And for queer people who've spent any time in the closet, heterosexual research isn't just compulsory, it's high-stakes. I was closeted all through high school and came out at some point during university. By today's standards, I would be a serious late-bloomer, but I was born in the 1980s and a lot of people my age were working on a similar timeline. My original working title for the show was When I Was Straight and a big part of what the show is about is tracking my own personal history with both queerness and straightness; I'm trying to rediscover the different versions of myself that have existed throughout my life in relation to heterosexuality and find a way to reconcile them. So, do I understand heterosexuals? Sure! I was one. I wouldn't say it was a great look for me, but I did manage to survive the '90s and early '00s without people asking too many questions...

What was your favourite reaction to the shows in Edmonton? 

Johnnie Walker: I had one audience member approach me after the show to say it had inspired her to reconnect with a queer high school friend she had lost touch with because the show had made her realize she hadn't been as good an ally to him as she should have been. And the fascinating thing was: she was queer herself and had been out in high school. But, they were on different journies and she hadn't been able to understand the things he was going through at the time. I love that story. Something in the show crystallized this empathy that she hadn't previously been able to access for this former friend. So, when I say that the show is a direct conversation—despite the audience remaining silent—that's what I mean. She brought something of herself to the show, allowed herself to be changed by it, and came away with something she didn't have when she walked in the door. 

How have you changed the show from a Fringe production to a full staging? 

Johnnie Walker: To be honest, I haven't! This show is still very fresh to me and has had the briefest development process I've ever experienced as a writer⁠—and that's so exciting! The theatre culture in this country is sometimes development-obsessed and many brilliant ideas get overcooked before they finally make their way to the stage. There's something spare and raw and simple about this show that I loved discovering and sinking into at the Edmonton Fringe and this run is really just an opportunity to do the show again in my hometown and bring in all of the friends and family and community members who I haven't had the opportunity to share it with yet. That said, the venue I had in Edmonton was a church hall with no air conditioning in the middle of the summer. The Factory Studio is a lovely classic black-box venue where I've actually debuted four of my previous plays, so Toronto audiences will be getting a more polished theatrical experience in which I am less likely to be dripping sweat on the front row. 

What differences are you anticipating from a Toronto audience and an Edmonton audience? 

Johnnie Walker: I truly love Edmonton Fringe audiences⁠—they're game; they're adventurous; show them a good time, and they'll follow you anywhere! Toronto audiences are very sophisticated, there's a high taste level there, but they can maybe be a bit more cynical? Possibly the audiences here will be more queer or at least more Queer-savvy, but my hope is that show works regardless of the sexual orientation breakdown of the house. 

After the large cast of Shove It Down My Throat, how did it feel to be working solo? 

Johnnie Walker: It feels great! In a way, it feels like I'm going back to my roots. My most-produced play is my previous solo show, Redheaded Stepchild (which I first performed all the way back in 2010!), and I've worked as a director on several other solo shows. On the other hand, it also feels like risky, new material for me. I think I am allowing myself to be myself in front of the audience and be vulnerable with them more than I ever have, even in a show like Shove It Down My Throat where I was portraying a version of myself onstage. As a playwright, I do love dialogue and writing big scenes for many voices and characters, but on a practical level, large ensemble casts are so hard to pull off. Maybe it's also a reaction against the performance hiatus that covid presented⁠—it's been a while since I've been on stage and I've got a lot to say.

How do you balance your performance with your director's eye? Did you have assistance in the creation of The Heterosexuals? 

Johnnie Walker: So, this was new territory for me, because for the most part I was directing myself, which is a first for me. It helped to book rehearsal space in a dance studio, so that I could watch myself perform and get a sense of what kind of stage picture I was creating in the moment. That said, I was lucky enough to be able to rope in some brilliant friends and I was able to do runs in front of Sam Mullins, Cam Wyllie, and Blain Watters, who were all fabulous outside eyes and gave me some really valuable notes and feedback. 

You have a very eclectic resume. Are you hoping to do more acting or writing or directing or . . .? What do you enjoy the most? 

Johnnie Walker: I'm happy to just follow the work. I do always think of myself as a writer first, but I do really enjoy performing as well⁠  The two things are very connected for me because I'm often writing work with the intention of performing it myself. I'd love to do more acting outside of just my own work. I think other people are sleeping on what a fun performer I am! With directing, again I have mostly worked with my own material and I can't see myself as someone who'd be like "Here's my take on this Mamet play" or whatever, but what I do really love is taking on a director role with another writer-performer and helping them shape their material.

Is there a straight role that you feel you would be particularly suited to play? Is there one you would particularly want to play? A non-heterosexual role? 

Johnnie Walker: Algernon Moncrieff in The Importance of Being Earnest. Blanche Dubois in Streetcar⁠—one of my favourite heteros! How about Sally Bowles in Cabaret? I always tried to get cast as the romantic lead in theatre school and they always stuck me with old men or put me in drag. The thing is: most straight roles are a snooze and a total waste of how much fun I am. And since there's a depressing dearth of decent queer roles out there, I've generally had to write my own. But I've always dreamed of doing Hedwig or Angels or Rocky Horror. I do a great "Sweet Transvestite" at karaoke.

How did your work with BoylesqueTO enhance your theatrical skills? Your life experience? 

Johnnie Walker: My work with BoylesqueTO has had a huge influence on my theatrical output, and vice versa. There's no fourth wall when you're hosting a burlesque show; you have to be present; you have to let yourself be seen; you're at the front of the stage, talking with the audience⁠—and I do mean "with." Burlesque audiences are rowdy. They will heckle you. They will try to climb on stage. They will let you know if they are having fun or if they are bored; jokes will either land or they will bomb, there's no in between. Writing burlesque banter has made me a better comedy writer; delivering it has made me a better performer. Meanwhile, my background as a playwright always made me want to take the job of hosting a stripshow⁠—of basically distracting the audience while someone picks up all the discarded underwear⁠—and imbue it with a level of character development and a narrative arc that I know most audience members would never expect. I always saw it as something of a challenge to take the part of the show that no one has actually come for and do everything I can to turn it into their favourite part of the night. Working with BoylesqueTO has opened all kinds of fascinating doors for me, both professionally and personally. It's definitely made me a more sex-positive and body-positive person.

Camp and satire are art forms almost exclusive to the queer realm. What artists influenced you and The Heterosexuals? 

Johnnie Walker: There's such a strong tradition of virtuoso solo performers in Canadian theatre, and I learned so much coming up while watching shows by Daniel MacIvor, Karen Hines, Rick Miller, and Kristen Thomson. Not an exclusively queer group, I know, but all artists with a firm grasp of satire and camp, I would argue. Cliff Cardinal's another one who's executed some of the most devastating satire I've ever seen. But I think I actually first started thinking about the idea of doing The Heterosexuals while sitting in the audience of Jacqueline Novak's brilliant solo show Get On Your Knees, which is part standup, part storytelling, part performance poetry and it's all about blowjobs. It's such a powerful, deceptively simple piece that allows her artistic voice to shine through while never getting overly concerned about what genre of performance it exists in. And it made me realize that some of my favourite queer comedians like Eddie Izzard, Hannah Gadsby, and Tig Notaro also play around in these liminal, genre-bending spaces and the freedom of that was very appealing to me. There are parts of The Heterosexuals that feel like stand-up comedy, and parts that feel like confessional storytelling, and parts that feel like spiky satire, and one bit that's almost a séance. I think all queer art should probably be somewhat genre agnostic. 

How can we as a people help the cause of the heterosexuals? Should we? 

Johnnie Walker: Slip Tom of Finland comics under their pillows and read Gertrude Stein to them while they are sleeping. Invite them to a Super Bowl Party where you actually just screen Paris is Burning. Remind yourself that homophobia is also bad for straight people and transphobia is also bad for cis people and forgive the ones you feel like forgiving for at least some of the fucked-up nonsense they've said to you if it means you can pull that pin out of your heart. And maybe check one more time to make sure they weren't actually a lesbian all along!