WarmWindInChina

Warm Wind In China

Eugene Sauve as Slater, left, and Rob MacLean playing Davis in the Charlottetown production

The world premier of this play by KentStetson - the first Canadian play about AIDS - was produced in 1988 by NeptuneTheatre at the Sir James Dunn Theatre in Halifax.

The play is set in and around Halifax in 1988.

This program note from the forward to the play:

July 1, 1988 When Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson closed bedroom doors to the scrutiny of the nation, Canadian gay men came out of the closet in a celebration of pride and newly found self worth.

We had hardly drawn our first breath of fresh air when we found we'd moved out of the closet into a ghetto. With political determination and help from increasing numbers of enlightened individuals, we began to dismantle the ghetto walls.

AIDS struck and stronger, higher walls rose around us with alarming speed. Stone by stone, rumour by rumour, death by bone-chilling death we found ourselves encircled. Terrible social cruelties emerged; teachers lost jobs, men too weak to care for themselves lost friends, relatives, apartments - basic human needs were snatched away without a second thought. The virus became more important than the humanity it destroyed. We were on our own. This time we knew who we were. We rallied, and informed more by compassion than fear, we began again. Stories of heroism emerged from behind viral ghetto walls. WARM WIND IN CHINA is dedicated to friends and lovers and those who seek to understand."

Pictured: Eugene Sauve as Slater, left, and Rob MacLean? playing Davis in the Charlottetown production, directed by the p'wright.