Forty-five years ago, police raided four bath houses in Toronto and arrested hundreds of men. Operation Soap, which was the largest single arrest in Toronto history at the time, resulted in thousands of dollars of damages at the bath houses and claims of police brutality.
Jay Whitehead learned about the raids in the early 2000s and couldn’t get them out of his head.
“It sparked protests in the gay and lesbian community after that,” Whitehead said. “It’s often cited as one of the catalysts of the modern Pride movement.”
Operation Soap ultimately served as an inflection point in the history of LGBTQ+ people in Canadia and Whitehead is touring a new play in the Maritimes that explores that fraught moment.
“It feels like the right time to revisit this,” he said. “As an openly gay person from an early part of my career, my interests have always gone towards queer characters.”
The play, called “333,” follows three characters – an immigrant, a married man and a femme-presenting man – in the immediate wake of the raids in 1981.
“333 is the room number of the bath house where our characters are caught,” Whitehead said. “I started out just thinking about who these individual men were and what they were dealing with in their lives. How did the raids worsen their lives?
“I dug into the archives that are available out there. I really developed these characters from firsthand accounts and how they described the unnecessary violence of these raids. The characters are drawn from these accounts and my own imagination as a gay man.”
Whitehead, who is originally from Alberta, did a smaller workshop of the play in Lethbridge in 2021. He’s worked on the show for years and has now developed it into a two-act play that recently debuted in Charlottetown.
Whitehead, who also acts in the show, is taking it on a mini tour of the Maritimes this week. After a performance in Sackville, N.B., last Friday, the play is running at the Ship’s Company Theatre in Parrsboro, N.S., on Saturday and the Bus Stop Theatre in Halifax from July 1 to 4.
“There was a deliberateness of doing it in Pride Month,” Whitehead said. “The community is paying attention to queer folk in month of June. I wouldn’t say it makes it any more or less impactful. It’s another way to get the word out about the piece.”
Whitehead said the mini tour is a “proof of concept” for the show as he would like to bring it across Canada.
“The ultimate goal would be to take it to communities across the country,” he said. “At a time when national unity is a priority, it’s a time to tell Canadian stories.”
“It’s a horrible story in many ways. I’m not going to say it’s an easy watch. It doesn’t pull any punches. It’s important it doesn’t flinch. We do arrive at the end of the play that is forward thinking and hopeful. I’m hoping people take to heart the message to carry forward the work that is still ahead for us. I hope it galvanizes them.”
