Alan Shain’s latest play, the one-man show Time to put my Socks on, debuts this summer.
For Alan Shain, life is not about overcoming the limitations of his disability, but embracing them.
Getting his wheels stuck in the snow on the way to the grocery store is a small price to pay for international recognition. Not all the stages that he graces are accessible, but his comedy always is.
Using universal themes of love, sex and dating, Shain’s original one-man shows are shattering stereotypes and uncomfortable silences around the world.
“My disability gives me my comedy. It gives me my stories. I always joke,” says Shain with a giggle. “If it weren’t for my disability, I would just be a regular white guy with a bad haircut.”
As Shain’s infectious laughter fills his home office on Lisgar Street, it’s difficult to not smile with him.
Ever since his first sit-down comedy routine at Yuk Yuk’s Komedy Kabaret in Ottawa, where he had to be lifted onto an inaccessible stage by the club manager and MC, he’s never wanted to come down. It’s been more than 20 years since that night, but Shain says he still loves the rush of looking out at a shocked audience and dispelling disability myths.
Myth number one: People with cerebral palsy can’t go to regular schools. On the contrary, Shain has his honours bachelor degree in political science and sociology as well as a master’s in social work from Carleton University.
Myth number two: People with cerebral palsy don’t have sexual relationships. To the surprise of many, Shain’s plays revolve around love and sex, and sometimes, share a little too much information.
Myth number three: You can’t laugh at someone with cerebral palsy. This one is the quickest to be dispelled; all you have to do is watch him perform.
Following Shain’s international tour of his first original play, Still Waiting for that Special Bus, his performances have been globally acclaimed. In addition to performing across Canada and England, Shain has toured Australia twice and was the only Canadian artist invited to the 2000 Paralympic Arts Festival in Sydney.
The most surprising thing about the reception of Shain’s shows is how similar his praises are. When performing in Taiwan in 2008, Shain says he was concerned about how his comedy would transcend cross-cultural boundaries, especially with translated text illuminated on the screen behind him. To his surprise, says Shain, the audience loved it, which says a lot about the shifting attitudes towards disability, particularly in a country where the disabled are often hidden in shame by their families.
In Still Waiting for that Special Bus, Shain uses the character’s search for love as a way to address inaccessibility. He spends the play anticipating a date he has lined up and the late Para Transpo bus he needs to get there.
“Para Transpo is essentially controlling this character’s sex life,” says Shain. “When he finally gets there, the club they’re meeting at is up a flight of stairs.”
Shain’s plays are based on personal experiences, so it was no surprise to hear that when he went to take dance classes at a studio on Rideau Street, he had to crawl up two flights of stairs to get there.
He’s an inspiration to anyone who’s able-bodied because he doesn’t let obstacles stop him from doing what he wants, says former dance instructor Peter Ryan.
Until now, Shain focused on touring with his stories, plays and comedy routines, but he is now trying to network more in Ottawa.
“Ninety per cent of my work is on the road. A lot of people in Ottawa know of me, but haven’t seen me perform. Instead of focusing on the logistics of travel, I want to focus on the creation process,” says Shain.
A self-declared activist at heart, he’s written for the Canadian Theatre Review, Blizzart and Arts Ability Magazine, as well as contributing to both the Ottawa and Toronto Storytelling Festival, but lately his focus has been on movement through dance.
“In our society there is a lot of emphasis on physical control, and being able to walk and talk in a certain way. If you don’t conform to that very narrow bandwidth, you’re considered weak,” he says.
This was a fallacy he had to prove wrong.
With colleagues Shara Weaver and Renata Scoutter, he helped co-found and direct the DanceAbility program, which since 2007, has been independently incorporated as non-profit organization, Propeller Dance.
The integrated dance program offers classes to people with and without disabilities in an attempt to show that anyone can become a professional dancer, says Weaver.
After meeting Shain at a party, Weaver says she wanted to dance with him because his physicality was so different from hers.
“His work is very personal and he puts himself out there in way that’s extremely vulnerable,” says Weaver. “I don’t think a lot of people would have the guts to do what he does.”
The trio is currently working on adding the final touches to their latest piece, Viewfinder, in hopes of touring with the performance in the fall.
“I don’t think I realized when I started this career how much time and energy actually goes into traveling,” he says. Judging from the stacks of papers on his shelves and awards on his walls, it’s safe to say Ryan wasn’t exaggerating when he said Shain doesn’t hold back.
Shain recently spoke out on behalf of the Radical Disabled Artists Network about a description the National Arts Centre wrote for upcoming play, Une fête pour Boris, which referred to the characters as “legless cripples.”
Shain says that while these comments fuel his activism, they also make him feel ostracized from an institute that he had hoped would be more open minded by 2010.
With disabled people comprising one of Canada’s largest minority groups, Shain says he recognizes the importance of speaking to younger generations, and has involved himself with the Multicultural Artists in Schools and Communities program.
This summer, Shain will return to his Ottawa theatre roots with a performance of Time to put my Socks on, his latest play that he co-developed with Michelle Decottignies of Stage Left Productions. The one-man performance will be showing at the Great Canadian Theatre Company from July 7 to 10.
It’s the sequel to Shain’s first play and explores the power dynamics of serious relationships. When his character’s designer-sock-obsessed girlfriend wants to move in, tension ensues over the possible end of Shain’s tendency to only wear white tube socks.
Once again, Shain’s play uses the humour of triviality to explore the deeper issues of disability and Shain’s own experience of being in relationships with able-bodied people.
“People always think of disability as being very limiting, but I try to challenge that,” says Shain. “Just like gender or race, it forms the way I relate to the world. It’s part of who I am. It’s my identity.”