By Darby Turnbull.
What a monumental thrill it is to see a flourishing, expansive canon of local trans theatre emerge. Not just theatre that includes trans talent but work that is so stark, so authentic and piercing in its transness. After the grotesque burlesque performed in Washington DC yesterday, in which President No.47 reiterated that the US Government would only recognise ‘two genders’ and vowed to throw their power behind the further erasure of trans people, it was a welcome balm to go into a space where transness wasn’t merely tolerated but sacrosanct. We’re going to need those spaces and they’re going to have to be accessible.
Bayley Turner’s Thirty-Six written alongside legendary poet and theatre maker Jo Clifford (The gospel of Jesus, Queen of Heaven) is a stunning meditation on the trans person’s relationship with mortality. As Turner chillingly states, 35 is the average life expectancy of a trans femme person. She turns 35 next year. She also very rightfully reminds us that these statistics are anecdotal. The lives and legacies of trans people are often reliant on oral record keeping within our own communities. It’s tragic just how exceptional it is to have a cross generational collaboration between two trans women, Clifford is in her 70’s. AIDS, poverty, violence, erasure; these are Damoclean swords that hang over generations of trans people. The connection displayed between Turner’s live performance and Clifford’s voice overs (though she was able to attend opening night) is a beautiful, tender thing to behold. One of the rueful highlights of this production is the reverence with which the lives of trans people are memorialised against a society that treats those lives, at best, as a sideshow curiosity, at worst, with genocidal intent.
The performance, however, resists falling into maudlin morbidity. Turner herself lends her story a uniquely Australian sense of dry humour, I bring it up because it’s been a while since I’ve seen it used so well. The self-deprecating larrikinism usually reserved for try hard AFL commentators is beautifully subverted when wielded by a majestic trans woman. Like all good eulogies, her openhearted, but rueful storytelling, wraps the audience in a mournful embrace yet doesn’t deny us some essential chuckles of recognition.
Director, Kitan Petkovski, is fast gaining recognition as one of our most inventive and exciting directors. His work here is a testament to his unique skill at facilitating a spiritual forum for the intersections of the self and the social.
The ambience curated within forty-five downstairs is a lovely balance of communal casualness and overt theatricality. Alexandra Amerides provides an eerie shadow presence on the stage where he contributes key pieces of dialogue, singing and live sound effects. A supremely talented classical vocal artist, Amerides’ contributes a rich, resonant soundscape for the whole performance. In addition to segments of established pieces of music, Di Drew’s compositions are dynamic and soulful.
Spencer Herd’s Lighting designs are bold and support the epic nature of Turner’s emotional journey throughout the performance. From intimate confessionals about the nuances of her own lived experience, to fierce oration about her own, and other trans people’s, place within spirituality, history and the present day; the production design uplifts the themes beautifully.
Turner and Clifford’s work is a profound and singular contribution to our cultural landscape. Their discussions around gender fluidity as a vessel for social and spiritual evolution is enlightening. They portray at length how femininity is so frequently associated with pain and peril; ‘why would anyone choose to be a woman?’ or ‘welcome to womanhood’ is a melancholy refrain and this work offers a challenge and an alternative. Why should the feminine, and the individuals endless capacity to embody it, be reduced to such stark terms? Trans exclusionary feminism frequently asserts the monopoly on womanhood by fiercely upholding their ownership on biological pain and patriarchal violence, as if trans people aren’t experiencing those things exorbitantly. Thirty-Six offers a mindful thesis around the possibilities of releasing our stigma around gender, sex and death through embracing the wisdom of those who actually engage with them existentially. Like Clifford’s own Gospel according to Jesus, Queen of Heaven, it’s one powerful sermon.
Images: James Reisner
