Poz: gay resilience
28 Apr 2025 - Photos courtesy of Theatre Topikos

Mark Keller (5 Guys Chillin') quickly scans the popular culture assessment of HIV in 2014 when he received his diagnosis.  Listing those well-meaning films, television and theatrical productions grappling with the plague, he is forced to come to one conclusion, "If you are gay, you will die of sex." But this is 2024 and the narrative has changed, people with HIV are living and thriving thanks to medication, and undetectable means untransmissible combined with PrEP have erased the myth that gay sex equals death. The narrative is no longer necessarily tragic and Keller manages to even add much comedy as he navigates the story of ten years spent coming to terms with being Poz. Like most queer narratives, it is less triumphing emphatically over adversity — that won't happen until there is a cure for HIV and for homophobia —and more coming to terms with reality and staring adversity in the face and defiantly fighting back. As Keller quips, "It was like coming out all over again, but instead of throwing me a parade, it was a funeral." Consider Poz the raucous life-affirming wake for a death sentence commuted.

Keller builds Poz around a central metaphor comparing coping with his diagnosis and the resultant stigma, to participating in the PWA Friends for Live Bike Rally. On the third day of cycling from Toronto to Montreal, Keller is tempted to give up. His motivating mantra of "This is just what we do now," gets him through and is explicitly tied to accepting his life after diagnosis. It may sound reductive but it is powerfully apt and leaves space for the many other aspects that Keller explores. Poz tackles guilt, self-blame, stigma and the self-imposed secrecy that leads to shame. Poz may begin at the Hassle-Free Clinic but it ends on the open road. And even the scenes in the clinic contain humour: Keller is cruised by a fellow patient and debates the ethics of their flirtation and where it could lead. He captures the way that sex is a driving force, regardless of the physical and emotional risk, that is so much of the gay lifestyle. Of gay history. Of life.

Keller doesn't shy away from the truth about being gay, the moment of his infection is presented explicitly, but he also explicitly points out that the sordid and the fabulous are not mutually exclusive. A sojourn into self-medication becomes a runway fantasia on the joys and dangers of drug use. He lists his reasons for casual sex and, while comical, a search for love and validation are at the core. The eternal gay conundrum. Keller is ably assisted by Alan Shonfield (5 Guys Chillin') who the program lists as playing "Everyone else." That turns out to be an understatement as Shonfield slides into the skin of a multitude of friends, lovers and doctors, giving each a distinct personality and physicality, while never being showy. Not even when playing a melodramatic spurned ex. Keller is genial and engaging with a gift for delivering a one-liner with just the right emphasis. We very quickly empathize and his journey becomes ours. Amber Pilon appears in a hilarious turn as Bambi Marshall the number one realtor in the greater Brockville area, who warns that "I'm just a billboard and you might have heat stroke." 

At first I questioned why Shonfield didn't just quickly don a wig and portray Bambi, it's not outside his range, but then realized that all his characters are grounded in gay reality. Drag might push the portrayal further into camp than Poz would be able to support. Like the pop culture predecessors, it is important that Keller remain an everyman gay man. HIV doesn't just happen to the extreme or the outliers, it is a virus that doesn't punish or discriminate. As Keller explains in an emotional moment that turns comic, the virus is just trying to exist. Director Nick May (5 Guys Chillin', Sherlock and Watson: Behind Closed Doors) keeps the setting simple and the cast always in motion, somehow always being spotlit by Sofia Di Cicco's lighting design. Even when Keller monologues, he is pedaling a bike centerstage, or getting physically close and making eye contact. This is his story but it could easily be ours. The result is not so much catharsis or PSA as it is a slice of life, a portrait of gay resilience in the face of tragedy. The plague of AIDS killed far too many and created an endless collective trauma which we struggle to deal with through art. Poz posits a way forward for those of us who survived.