Pride is coming up, and every year we throw a special event of The Infinite Wrench: 30 Queer Plays In 60 Straight Minutes. It’s a show we love doing, bringing back plays that celebrate everything Love, Sexuality, Sex, Silliness, Raunchiness and Wild. But also, we take the time to reflect, muse, mourn and protest what’s facing our LGBTQ+ community at large.
Below is some text by Jasmine Henri Jordan, one of the spearheads on the curation of that show, and here she shares a sampling of her play Men Talking About the End of the World, currently featured in the regular run of TIW. In the play, Jasmine (JHJ) shares a moment with Connor Shioshita Pickett (CSP).
JHJ
I’m sick of men talking about the end of the world. It’s here. The end of my world is fast and all at once. The end of my world will be a man with a knife on the red line. A doctor who won’t treat my trans partner. The slow death of working five jobs to make what a white man might make with two. My world is going to end soon. My world is little- it’s a handful of neighborhoods a handful of times of day with the exact right amount of money in my pocket. My world gets smaller. I’ll get priced out of my world- move a little further north of my world and still tell people I live there. Maybe it’s selfish, but I can’t even wrap my head around the end of the world at large.
CSP
So should I not feel horrible?
JHJ
You should absolutely feel horrible. You should feel like absolute shit. You didn’t stop climate change. You didn’t canvas enough in the 2016 election. You pretended that you forgot to donate to that gofundme for that friend of a friend who’s dying. From 10:18 am to 11:25 am, you’re allowed to feel like shit. You can reactivate your twitter and write angry things in your journal. You can re-remember all of the stupid shit you said in the eighth grade. You can send me articles about the end of clouds and millennials not having enough sex and the crisis in Sudan. You should also feel really guilty. For one hour and seven minutes everyday.
CSP
And the rest of the day?
CSP
So this is it for the rest of the day? Just movie montages and music and ice cream and fun?
JHJ
Yep.
CSP
What about work and paying taxes and drinking water?
JHJ
Fuck it. It’s the end of the end of the world.
CSP
Sick.
Get tickets to TIW:30QP now, at the event page. (Remember: 100% of the proceeds for the Thursday night show (6/27) will be benefit Transformative Justice Law Project of Illinois.)
