“ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK!
By Michelle/Ryan
Directed by Peter Larsen
Performed at Tiny Theatre, Garnet Station, Auckland
12 to 14 May, 2016 at 8.00pm
It’s possible that this review should come with the trigger warning. I wouldn’t give it one myself but others might choose to differ. As a transgender woman I did find some of the content confronting but in a good way. The nature of the week I had experienced contributed to that because it was seven days of not being able to escape the uniqueness of ‘what I am’ rather than’ who I am’. On Wednesday evening I spoke alongside barrister Kelly Ellis and ‘No Pride in Prisons’ spokesperson Ti Lamusse at the Equal Justice Project Forum at The University of Auckland on the subject of ‘The Rights of Transgender People in Prison’ and while I’m a pretty tough old bird some of this was challenging. On Thursday afternoon I did a radio interview about coming out as transgender and in the mean time I had meetings with three young transgender and genderqueer students just beginning their own distinctive journeys. Some weeks are different to others and the icing on this week’s complex cake was definitely “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK!, the extraordinary performance of Michelle/Ryan and the excellence of the dramaturgy and direction of Peter Larsen. It’s designed, as the title suggests, to be provocative and confronting and, wow, it sure is! Don’t let this put you off, however, because, if you like hardarse, in-your-face (literally), incendiary theatre then this will be right up your back alley!
Michelle/Ryan’s website tells us that “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK! is a one-person, genderqueer, kinky, femmesexual, polyminded, gay-divorcee PRIDE parade through the real life of Michelle/Ryan. “Ze” (the pronoun most commonly used by gender non-conforming folk) rips the bandage away from hir startling American Puritan upbringing in a multi-layered “coming out” process. Along the way ze discovers a beloved community that at times is just as ridiculous and pigeon-holed as the one ze’s left. Michelle/Ryan both uses and parodies the labels meant to help an individual embrace their truth in a modern world desperate for definition. “Ze” confronts stereotypes both within and without in a celebration that exposes the complex tension between being authentic to oneself and belonging.’
Yep, that pretty much sums it all up. Self-knowledge can be a freeing up thing.
Wiktionary defines ‘ze’ in ‘Usage notes’ as follows:
‘The genderqueer community are the primary proponents of ze. One refers to a person with ze and hir or zir typically (a) when their gender is unknown, and one wishes to avoid assuming their gender, or (b) when they are neither male nor female in gender, making he and she (and also either/or terms like s/he or (s)he) inappropriate and potentially hurtful.’
I hope this is helpful. It was to me.
The two performance spaces I like the most at the moment are the Tiny Theatre at café and performance venue Garnet Station in Westmere, and Te Pou, the Auckland Home for Māori Theatre, in New Lynn. Both spaces allow for maximum flexibility and innovative presentation and each is run by people who really know their theatre. In each case smaller scale work can be presented at minimal risk and the kaupapa of each venue is supportive of new and often experimental work. I doubt you’ll ever see “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK! performed on stage at the Civic but perhaps it should be. If it was it would suggest that our society had progressed to a point where theatre of this nature was no longer necessary and wouldn’t that be a good thing. I could be wrong, after all, I would have been the last to suggest, when I took in Eve Ensler’s one woman production of ‘The Vagina Monologues’ in London in 1998, that it would become a mainstream, mainstage work within a mere fifteen years. I guess anything’s possible because somewhere, somehow, “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK!, has found its way to a theatre near you and that has to say something though I’m not sure yet quite what that is. It’s a good thing though, and Michelle/Ryan is simply stunning in it – which helps.
This new production uses the Garnet Station space in a way I haven’t seen it used before, lengthwise with the stage at the end furthest from the main door, and it works remarkably well.
We are welcomed warmly to a space that seats around 40, all on the flat and in rows of seven with an aisle between five and six and while this may seem as though visibility from the back might be difficult it doesn’t prove to be the case.
The artist known as Michelle/Ryan is already on the stage and engaged in warming zirself up. Zir’s calisthenics, as we would have called them in the ‘50’s, are impressive and ze engages freely with the audience as they totally fill the theatre. Perhaps of most interest as we take our seats is the shock value of the over large pink penis that protrudes from zir’s shorts and which causes no end of mirth to zir’s enthusiastic audience. At this point it had already become clear that this show was not for the faint-hearted, nor was it to be for the vanilla-hearted because, while this is a show of rare and extraordinary excellence, it’s content is of a somewhat ‘specialised’ nature and I wouldn’t invite my straight neighbours, nor most of my colleagues at work, no way in the world, but then, who am I to say …
Why do I say this? Why am I fudging it, you may ask, why am I ‘gilding the lily’ so to speak? Well, it’s because both artist and content, while superbly matched, will no doubt always appeal more to a niche rather than a mainstream market because of the graphic nature of both the show’s language and its explicit sexual content. It’s a shame because Michelle/Ryan’s journey should be available to everyone but, hey, that’s just how it is right now and I guess we just have to accept that. The fact that ze’s made it available at all is a blessing and I personally thank zir for that.
The show currently comes with an R16 rating and, while I oppose any form of censorship in the theatre, for once I believe that this is an appropriate age restriction. Usually I ignore such restrictions but, purely by chance, I didn’t take my largely unshockable son, aged 13, on this occasion and I’m glad I didn’t because I believe some of the content would have been challenging even for him.
When the show proper begins I think it’s fair to say that the audience was surprised to hear Michelle/Ryan say ze used to work with young children. She – ze – was living as a binary female at the time – qualifies this by saying it was the only way she thought she could ever be paid to play dodgeball all the time. Good call, I think to myself. I’d have done the same.
If you’re confused at this point I can fully understand your confusion. The show itself isn’t confusing, nor is the progression through Michelle/Ryan’s life anything more than predictably complex, but the use of pronouns is. I should explain at this point that this is a gendered journey so nothing will ever be what it seems so you’ll just have to go with it knowing you’ll (hopefully) understand in the end. There’s no programme to help the hard-of-knowing and unless you’ve read the website you’ll be in the pronoun dark so, either go back to my explanation at the beginning or carry on in the knowledge that all will become clear(er) as we progress.
I have chosen to use the gender pronouns that seem to be appropriate at each point along Michelle/Ryan’s journey. They change as the Artist Once Known Simply as Michelle evolves but while ze lives as a binary female I’ll use that terminology and hope like hell that it works for you and doesn’t offend zir.
We open with a fascinating and suitably forthright discussion about the sexual behaviour of children and the accompanying early life masturbation. Michelle refers to the fact that young people have no shame because they have yet to learn what it is and this rings true to her audience who clearly enjoy the memories.
The oversized – perhaps I don’t know enough about these things, perhaps it’s average, I wouldn’t really know – anyway, in my opinion, oversized pink penis is unceremoniously dispensed with and replaced by a nice pair of jeans and we move into the fascinating – and somewhat more comfortable – area of wanting to protect our tribes and how we need to determine just exactly what our tribe is and who we share it with. Michelle/Ryan spends the remaining 45 minutes of this excellent piece finding out just exactly who zir tribe is and exactly how ze can disrupt it to the max.
It’s worth noting at this point that underpinning this fine production is a structure that has been carefully planned, splendidly executed, and subtly directed by Peter Larsen. Nothing is superfluous despite there being ample audience engagement and plenty of scope for improvisation – it has a strong hint of stand-up – and the performer is always in absolute control.
Using a range of musical instruments, and in particular a hand-held glockenspiel, Michelle/Ryan sets out to gaudily explain how gender and sexuality are a spectrum and similar to musical notation. We are encouraged to realise that, while we may think we know our own individual note, we may, during our lifetime (or the show if we’re quick) find that others are equally attractive. In the hands of this volatile audience appropriately equipped with kazoos, swanee whistles and the like the gender and sexuality range is more than extraordinary and Michelle/Ryan’s point is adequately made. It’s a fun tool and works a treat because, while we manage to discover our own note, we also discover – if we didn’t know already – that this isn’t our only note and, armed with this new knowledge and something to make a significant amount of noise with, our already loose audience becomes positively fluid. It’s of particular interest to note the ease with which Michelle/Ryan brings us all to order when it had looked as though the discovery of new notes would become the task du jour for hours, and many wines, to come.
We learn that Michelle/Ryan’s Mum, a religious woman, found herself, through no fault of her own, in charge of a sex education programme in schools although, as Michelle/Ryan points out, for zir Mother it was more like a No Sex programme because all she taught was abstinence.
At this point it became obvious, if it hadn’t been before, that “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK! is an interactive show. A series of questions similar to those that teenagers would (and did) ask ze’s mother are distributed throughout the audience and we have the pleasure of seeing Michelle/Ryan channel zir mother in answering each and every one of them. Each question asked brought an answer that erupted the length and breadth of Westmere and the answer to the final question – ‘why do gay guys take it up the butt’ – could well have seen a riot and the end of the show but for the production of a foot long wooden cross and the avowal that ‘before I belonged to all these sexualities I belonged to this’. Too many of us knew exactly what ze meant.
An experience on Christmas Eve at age seven has a profound effect on this intelligent child, one ze describes as ‘very jolly but no Santa.’ Zir Dad explains the naked, backyard parental cavorting by informing the child that ‘everything is OK when there is a marriage license’, a line that comes back to haunt.
There’s a somewhat disturbing section on ‘keeping it in the family’, disturbing in its reality and its frequency, and suddenly – I have to say unexpectedly – there is a boyfriend. He is short-lived however.
Having left school Michelle/Ryan goes to a Christian University and discovers girls, something that clearly pleases the largely female audience as does the unearthing of superdykes.ca and all the joys inherent in this discovery.
There’s a moment at this point in the show when things slow down a bit and I have a jiffy or two to reflect. Not a hiatus or anything as theatrically sinister as that, just a beat or two, and I become aware that the energy at the beginning of the performance had almost been too much, too energised, but that, within minutes, Michelle/Ryan had judged the space to perfection and zir understanding of the pitch and balance necessary had been superb.
As ze displays zir dancing style and talks about dating I become equally aware of a beautifully tuned and toned voice with actor training and actor equipment to die for. Michelle/Ryan is a performer who, while exposing zir life to us in its most intimate detail, also shows that ze could play any role, anywhere in the repertoire and it’s hard to imagine a better equipped Rosalind (‘As You Like It’) or a more skilful Wendla (‘Spring Awakening’) should the charm of solo performance and the need to tell zir story in any of its many permutations wears off.
Ze talks about zir first girlfriend, Jessica, and the edgy nature of the relationship stuck as ze was between being out and gay at university and the binds of zir church, a complexity not that uncommon for many young gender diverse or sexually questioning young people.
Ze comes out to zir parents, introduces zir new girlfriend, Julie, who is older, and discovers that there is a complete lack of acceptance of her sexuality as the family engage in the hateful game of ‘Pray Away the Gay’. It’s a deeply affecting moment when we hear that, in addition to what has already happened, Michelle/Ryan has been disinherited and that Julie’s family become the only family that ze knows.
By now the structure of the play is clear. It’s cleverly anchored around a series of ‘Self-discovery’s’, each anchored by a number. Self-discovery Number Three is that Michelle/Ryan is not vanilla. We are guided along the trail of kinkiness and have this explained to us in the simplest of terms which is helpful. ‘Kink’, Michelle/Ryan gleefully informs us, ‘is about power’ and just how much this is true becomes abundantly clear.
Michelle and Julie are married on a beach in Vancouver and we are immediately encouraged to note that, because Michelle’s father had given permission by means of his ‘everything is OK if there is a marriage license’ the sky is now the sexual limit for the newly-weds. Sadly, this fails to eventuate and the marriage experiences the dreaded LBD, and all the horror of women in long term relationships kicks in. The mere mention of ‘lesbian bed death’ has the audience once again in hysterics.
We move on to Self-discovery Number Four: Michelle is not monogamous. There are two lines at the start of this section that absolutely tear my guts out: ‘I’m my wife’s wife and then I’m not’ changes the tone in the Tiny Theatre completely, and ‘I used to make you smile and now I make you sad’ completely finishes us off. What a blubbering bunch this fine actor has turned us into.
‘There goes family’ I think to myself and there is no doubting the fact that the performance has suddenly driven us deep, deep, deep but this splendid artist is too clever to have us stay there for long and ze brings us back by telling us ze’s ‘on the market again’ and has ‘a list of experiences ze has yet to have’. Anticipation rules and we don’t have long to wait before we hear that what Michelle/Ryan really wants is ‘to fuck a guy in the arse’. ‘Well’, ze challenges us, ‘why not’ and ze introduces us to Steven. There’s some wonderful prop action with a mauve rubber glove – ‘it’s all about manners’ after all – and we are told that some hidden part of Michelle/Ryan ‘feels exposed, and Ryan is born’. It’s pretty graphic stuff and no stone is left unturned but it’s not gratuitous in the least so we just breathe our way through it and survive.
Self-discovery Number Six is that Michelle/Ryan is ‘not fully a woman and not fully a man’. We have already been introduced to the term genderqueer and we have already had the discussion around sexuality and gender being a spectrum so this really comes as no surprise. The question is asked ‘what, are we now, are we trans now?’ and I hear my favourite line from the whole evening: ‘I felt double gay – is that even a thing? I can assure you all that it is ‘a thing’, either that or I’m a monkey’s uncle, or auntie, or whatever, because I felt exactly the same way and feel privileged to have felt like this. Ryan wins out, ze is born – and so is “ZE”, and we’re pleased even though we know it means our evening is almost over. We hear that Ryan has discovered gender dysphoria and now feels completely genderless. I want to say ‘welcome to the club’ but I know discovering gender dysphoria and dealing with its’ quirks and idiosyncrasies are not the same thing and I suspect that, despite the joy of this discovery, zir life won’t be all plain sailing. Genderqueer rules in the life of this fine young person and for that we should all be grateful – even if the realities are beyond our own comprehension.
Self-discovery Number Seven is ‘fuck this shit, fuck all labels! No, it’s not over yet and we are confronted by a wonderful, and surprisingly respectful, parody of the Lord’s Prayer which leads into an epilogue about shame and freedom, about being shapeless and shameless, adapting to new experiences, learning that ‘shame is fuel’ and that through this there is a freedom that enables a precious life to continue to blossom. That’s is, of course, the truest of true freedoms and reason enough for this play to exist at all. There are a myriad more reasons, of course, the most significant of these being the performance of Michelle/Ryan, the smart-as writing, and the canny and largely indiscernible direction of Peter Larsen. I’d like to hope we’ll see plenty more of both.
“ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK! is an exceptional piece of work anchored by a performance by as talented an actor as you will see currently on any stage in the country. It’s a raw and incredibly intimate journey that should be compulsory viewing for the fainthearted, the timid, the binary-obsessed, the religiously-driven and those ‘Bachelor’ watching New Zealanders who anonymously express their redneckery in the comments section of every news article that has the audacity to suggest that transgender New Zealanders have a right to exist. Check it out, you’ll see I’m onto it. A show like “ZE”: QUEER AS FUCK! is exactly the nightmare a less thoughtful person than myself might inflict on these people every night until they finally understand the reality of gender diversity and sexual difference. Until that happens – in my dreams – I have more admiration for Michelle/Ryan then I can possibly say in one simple review. All I can say to anyone reading this review is that, if you have the courage and the tenacity to see this work and experience it, it may well change your life. Now tell me how a visit to the theatre can ever be better than that?
dykiegirl 