It telegraphs a great deal about the era in which he was living that, in the midst of his very enthusiastic December 1973 review (“I beseech you to see this play,” he wrote), New York magazine theatre critic John Simon referred to the principal characters of Creeps as “spastics.”
The characters about whom he was writing have cerebral palsy.
In recent decades, to describe someone afflicted with CP – or any movement disorder – as a spastic is rightly considered an ugly ethical transgression. But in the 1970s, the masses’ understanding of (and compassion for) the disabled was comparatively primitive. Which is exactly what first-time playwright David E. Freeman sought to expose – in as honest and audacious a manner as possible – with Creeps, which debuted in his native Toronto in February 1971.
The one-act play is set entirely in the unkempt restroom of a “sheltered workshop,” where four disabled men – and many similarly afflicted men and women – perform menial piecework for humiliatingly little money. The restroom is the one space where the men can escape the eyes and ears of their supervisors and speak openly.
Widely acclaimed, Creeps was mounted several more times across Canada and beyond (including off Broadway), and garnered awards for Freeman, himself burdened with CP until his death in 2012. (He wrote the play using a typewriter whose keys he would peck with a stick held between his teeth.)
And yet, despite its critical and commercial success, Creeps is little known beyond the most scholarly aficionados of Canadian theatre, and has rarely been staged since the ’70s. This is an oversight that Realwheels Theatre intends to redress when it mounts the play, at the Cultch’s Historic Theatre, beginning this week.
Rena Cohen, producer and dramaturge for Realwheels – a theatre company whose primary purpose is to present dramatic portrayals of disabled people – admits that even she and her colleagues previously knew very little aboutCreeps, despite it seeming like an obvious choice for the 13-year-old collective.
“We’re probably in very good company, in that a lot of people who studied theatre, people who are regular theatre attendees – it’s on our periphery. We’d heard of it, we knew it existed, we know that it had an impact on perceptions of disability,” says Cohen. “But there are a lot of people who’ve never had the opportunity to see it. So it’s a chance to reflect back on the perceptions of disability in 1971.”
Cohen speculates that the relative obscurity of Creeps is due to the very qualities for which it was praised following its premiere 45 years ago. It may simply betoo honest, not only about the indignities suffered by disabled people who laboured in sheltered workshops (Freeman was one of them), but about what men of a certain character – disabled or not – may say to each other when no one outside their circle is listening. Freeman purposely avoided well-worn dramatic stereotypes of disabled people as either altruistic saints (referred to by some Realwheels members as “inspiration porn”) or as spiritually broken misanthropes.
What’s more, Creeps, despite its bleak premise, is meant to be viewed as a comedy, albeit “pretty dark,” says Cohen. “It’s very funny. Humour is the way we cope, right?”
“This play doesn’t get produced very often, and I’ve known of cases where it’s been in consideration – even in academic institutions, even for MFA [Master of Fine Arts] projects – and they decided they wouldn’t touch it,” Cohen continues. “It was just too dangerous. With the passing of time, in some ways I think it may be even more dangerous to touch than it was, because of its political incorrectness. There are many more sensitivities we’re aware of today than we were in the 1970s.”
Consequently, she adds, “I don’t think audiences are going to have many more opportunities to see it.”
All the more reason why, despite some of its arguably archaic content, Cohen urges anyone interested in a realistic portrayal of the disabled – or, perhaps more accurately, a realistic portrayal of people – to see Creeps. Its provocations only make it more of a must-see.
“I’m hoping that all audience members – whether they’re able-bodied or with disabilities – will feel that they’ve experienced an authentic representation of disability on the stage,” she says. “It will give rise to questions about ‘What are the challenges today?’ Or ‘Can this piece be left to history?’ Is there no longer a need to mount a production like this? Have we come so far and, if not, what is it we still need to do?”
Creeps runs Dec. 1-10 at the Cultch (1895 Venables). Tickets and show times: TheCultch.com
