55 min
A Conversation with Brad Fraser Let's Talk with Che Marville
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- Society & Culture
Che spoke to Canadian playwright, screenwriter, and cultural commentator Brad Fraser. He has just released his first memoir, All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue. He had resisted writing a memoir for a long time. Still, he seemed to be doing the work of compiling a memoir organically as he told the story of friends lost to the AIDS crisis of the early nineteen nineties on world Aid's Day in social media every year. He had files and files of pictures and stories of a generation of forgotten people and the friends that looked after each other. Brad also shared his early love for reading and how writing became a refuge from his life of rejection, poverty and abuse. He spoke of his experience of boredom and the benefit monotony offers our imagination.
Brad discusses his early life and his internal knowledge about the value of caring for himself even if amid abuse; he knew that he needed to offer himself compassion and self-care; he knew that his survival depended on it. Brad discusses his inner knowing that he did not have to stay in the life he was born into was not the life he had to live. He started to write a young age and wrote his first play at 17; the theatre and the gay community became a safe and inspiring haven for him, and writing became a formidable outlet for his anger. He discusses the power of anger and the desire to use it constructively to let it out but not hurt yourself or other people. For Brad, anger became a muse of sorts for seeing and writing what was there but could not be said, and the theatre became a place to cultivate that ability to see and share what was unspoken in our society. The theatre never rejected him; instead, it was a place of education and freedom, he was able to be himself. His anger has become fuel for sharing the invisible stories, always exploring vulnerability, sexuality, morality and inequities in their many forms. He has always been someone who can be alone for long stretches, so the pandemic had not changed that; however, before the pandemic, he developed a relationship with a neighbour by the name of Shirley. And as their friendship developed over five years, so her decline due to Alzheimer's, they became more bonded, and he committed to caring for her in this time in her life. He never imagined this type of connection and yet is essential to his life now. This relationship has fueled his belief that the cure for loneliness and depression is giving a part of yourself away through caring so that someone else can have comfort. Please take a listen to one of the most compelling playwrights of our time. Please share the show, tell us what you think, and check out Brads's new book All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue., which comes out on May 2021.
Connect with Che at https://coachchemarville.com/
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chemarvilleletstalk/message
Che spoke to Canadian playwright, screenwriter, and cultural commentator Brad Fraser. He has just released his first memoir, All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue. He had resisted writing a memoir for a long time. Still, he seemed to be doing the work of compiling a memoir organically as he told the story of friends lost to the AIDS crisis of the early nineteen nineties on world Aid's Day in social media every year. He had files and files of pictures and stories of a generation of forgotten people and the friends that looked after each other. Brad also shared his early love for reading and how writing became a refuge from his life of rejection, poverty and abuse. He spoke of his experience of boredom and the benefit monotony offers our imagination.
Brad discusses his early life and his internal knowledge about the value of caring for himself even if amid abuse; he knew that he needed to offer himself compassion and self-care; he knew that his survival depended on it. Brad discusses his inner knowing that he did not have to stay in the life he was born into was not the life he had to live. He started to write a young age and wrote his first play at 17; the theatre and the gay community became a safe and inspiring haven for him, and writing became a formidable outlet for his anger. He discusses the power of anger and the desire to use it constructively to let it out but not hurt yourself or other people. For Brad, anger became a muse of sorts for seeing and writing what was there but could not be said, and the theatre became a place to cultivate that ability to see and share what was unspoken in our society. The theatre never rejected him; instead, it was a place of education and freedom, he was able to be himself. His anger has become fuel for sharing the invisible stories, always exploring vulnerability, sexuality, morality and inequities in their many forms. He has always been someone who can be alone for long stretches, so the pandemic had not changed that; however, before the pandemic, he developed a relationship with a neighbour by the name of Shirley. And as their friendship developed over five years, so her decline due to Alzheimer's, they became more bonded, and he committed to caring for her in this time in her life. He never imagined this type of connection and yet is essential to his life now. This relationship has fueled his belief that the cure for loneliness and depression is giving a part of yourself away through caring so that someone else can have comfort. Please take a listen to one of the most compelling playwrights of our time. Please share the show, tell us what you think, and check out Brads's new book All the Rage: A Partial Memoir in Two Acts and a Prologue., which comes out on May 2021.
Connect with Che at https://coachchemarville.com/
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Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/chemarvilleletstalk/message
55 min