By: Noeka Nimmervoll, Staff Writer
Content warning: Mentions of assault and AIDS
A production of Brave Hearts, a one-act, two-person play, ran from September 4 to 6 and September 11 to 13 in an East Van backyard. Brave Hearts was written by Harry S. Rintoul, a Manitoba-raised playwright. It portrays the dynamic between two gay men, GW and Rafe, in the Prairies, at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The play was directed by Elio Zarrillo, starring Nico Pante as GW and Matthew Paris-Irvine as Rafe. Featuring a simple setup of a picnic table in the backyard of supportive parents, it shares a fiery snapshot of the lives of the two men. The Peak attended one of the performances and connected with Pante to learn more about the project.
The audience entered through an alley entranceway to a traditional backyard with twinkling lights in the trees, and sat in foldable chairs that faced a simple set: a picnic table, cassette players, and old beer bottles strewn around. The play begins intensely as Rafe storms into the backyard after punching a partygoer in the face for getting on his nerves. Trapped by the situation, he confers, rather unwillingly, with the even-tempered GW, who endlessly pokes him with questions until he opens up. The story of Rafe’s life as a closeted gay man, who has recurring nightmares that he will die alone with AIDS, induces GW’s sympathy, despite Rafe’s belligerent behaviour. The characters’ personalities seem to have nothing in common: yet, they are two gay men grappling with loneliness in a difficult time. By the end of the play, everyone’s heart is broken by their undeniable and fraught connection.
Pante reflects that they treated this piece as a “queer period piece,” in how it reflected a “really clear capsulation of queer life at this moment in this place.” In 1991, the year the play debuted, people who tested positive for HIV/AIDS widely anticipated death, with the diagnosed having a median survival timeline of 20 months. “It was exactly the moment that this was all happening, which is why I think [the play] stays so resonant,” shared Pante. None of the medicines currently recommended by the FDA to treat HIV/AIDS had been approved in 1991. The play featured loneliness, anger, and identity struggles through strong yet subtle dialogue between the actors. “What I feel is really beautiful and interesting about the script is that it doesn’t shy away from a lot of the difficult and loud emotions that come with a lot of repression or loneliness or isolation,” said Pante.
Hosting the show in a backyard had two key motives: staying true to the story and minimizing costs. Pante explained, “We haven’t received any funding to date, [so] we were like, OK, what can we make work?” It didn’t come without its own challenges — at the height of an intensely emotional scene, a neighbour interrupted the production with a noise complaint. Impressively, the team dealt with the conflict with grace and the actors jumped back into their performance.
A theater isn’t a place, it’s a people. “We don’t want people to feel like they have to know something in order to go to the theater . . . We just wanted to tell a story and to connect with a group of people through emotion and human experience,” elaborated Pante.
“It’s a really special thing of, you all are in a space together, and you decide to believe the story that you’re watching”
— Nico Pante, actor and producer
“Yeah, GW and Rafe might not actually exist, the party is not actually happening at that moment, but you can’t deny that something is really happening in front of you.” And this was true; there was something real — and magical — that happened in that backyard. The story served as a reminder to some of the challenges faced by queer people in our very recent history. The complexities of the characters on stage that are akin to the complexities of the people of that time. The brilliant acting immersed me to the point of belief, where I developed an understanding of GW and a judgement of Rafe. Brave Hearts will be a play that I reflect on for years to come.
