Come Back

The Judy Garland of the future tells it like she sees it


The year is 2050, and, contrary to popular belief, Judy Garland did not die in 1969. At the grand old age of 138, she’s re–embraced her real name, Frances Gumm; she’s a feminist scholar, working on her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto; and she’s writing her thesis on a little–known gay Canadian playwright and drag queen, Dash King, whose rather dismal career ended in a plethora of drugs and promiscuous sex. Obsessed with King’s antiquated notion of gay politics, Frances’s own meditations on addiction are triggered by his tragic story. Will she go back to drugs, or will she finish her thesis?

Framed in an intense communication between Frances and her Ph.D. advisor, Come Back explores a dystopian future and muses on everything from the merits and demerits of post–structuralism to the future of queer theory. Sky Gilbert’s Judy Garland is angry, profane, funny, and very, very smart.