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Culture Stage

Class issues: Rob Kempson tackles queer teacher-student relations in Mockingbird

MOCKINGBIRD written and directed by Rob Kempson, with Tess Degenstein, Beau Dixon, Margaret Evans, James Graham, Stephen Jackman-Torkoff, Esther Jun, Andrew Moodie, Rahnuma Panthaky, Andrew Pimento, Kaitlyn Riordan and Paula Wing (timeshare). January 8 at 9:30 pm, January 9 at 8:30 pm, January 10 at 2 pm, January 12 at 9:15 pm, January 14 at 7:45 pm, January 15 at 5 pm, January 16 at 3:45 pm and January 17 at 4:15 pm. See listing.


There’s nothing new about high school romances, but in Rob Kempson’s Mockingbird, most of the characters are concerned when they hear rumours of a queer teacher-student liaison.

“But what really interests me,” says the playwright/director, “are issues of authority and power and how students and teachers can challenge the system. We have assumptions that a Western school system has a clear authoritative system, a hierarchy with the principal at the top and students at the bottom among students, too, there’s a pecking order.”

As a queer educator and artist, Kempson is fascinated by how students can disrupt that structure and take back power.

“The notion of high school sexuality is a way to explore that power dynamic.”

An earlier Kempson play, Shannon 10:40, looked at similar issues through the eyes of a gay male teacher and a lesbian student.

In a striking choice, Kempson ties together the play’s characters and ideas using a school classic, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird, taught by one of the senior faculty members.

“The book’s themes echo those in the play: loss of innocence, the coexistence of good and evil, the persecution of an innocent man, the misunderstandings, assumptions and gossip that happen in a community that seems, on the surface, perfectly happy and calm.”

Much of the play takes place in the English department’s workroom, as various teachers and other staff members come and go.

“As I wrote the play, the first act developed into a farce about serious things, with frequent new reveals and various entrances and exits informing the action, just as in a farce. In fact, it is funny in places.

“The second act is more Shavian in style, with people talking about ideas and sharing their perspectives, regularly surprising, confounding and betraying each other.”

Among the other characters are the gay teacher’s best female friend, who’s straight, and another pair of instructors whose relationship is potentially as dangerous and multi-faceted as that involving the central two figures.

“When you’re telling a narrative involving a couple who are perceived as queer, some people can easily dismiss the relationship or find it hard to comment on what they see as a different kind of moral compass. Mockingbird explores the way this kind of relationship questions some of those attitudes.”

Kempson, currently associate artistic director at the Thousand Islands Playhouse and formerly artistic producer of the Paprika Festival and associate artistic producer at Theatre Passe Muraille, says there’s no judgment in the play.

“I hope half the audience walks out thinking the teacher-student relationship is fine, while the other half feels upset by it.”     

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