By Daniel Kandra
When I was a sophomore in high school, the musical that had been chosen for our spring semester was the horror-comedy Little Shop of Horrors. It was a fine production, if I remember it correctly — and well-casted, for the most part. Though one thing I distinctly remember was the casting of a transmasc individual as Seymour Krelborn, and the criticism that received from the rest of the cast and larger theater department at that school. They doubted his ability to carry out the role and argued there were better actors in that call back room. Inevitably, the casting decision was completely written off by many in the student body as one done for brownie points. Everyone swore that transgender representation on the high school stage was reason enough for this seemingly preposterous casting choice and that the actor hadn’t done anything to merit receiving the role.
Before he was casted, these high school students never questioned his identity or how he presented. In the end, however, they used the trans label as a means of dismissing a casting decision they didn’t agree with. Ultimately, they undermined that choice by drawing a line in the sand when it came to a trans man playing a cis man on stage. It was something I sincerely hoped would be left in the past upon moving to college.
This was my first encounter with transphobia in the theater that I’d seen for myself — not just from a website or the news. Until then, I hadn’t realized how negative the commentary was. I have since reflected upon my own gender identity, affirming myself as someone who feels they are non-binary, and, as a result, would like to address how I’ve felt I stand in Temple’s theater community.
There’s this prevailing idea that a lot of collegiate underclassmen seem to carry with themselves, believing that they are now full grown adults, and will act as such. They assume they will tackle all things rationally and respectfully now that they are out of the “hormone cesspool” that high schools seem to represent. However, we are all still children at heart, in a lot of ways, and one thing children are constantly seeking is a familiar sense of comfort. We are still molded by the world around us and, quite frankly, there isn’t enough rep for the whole gender spectrum in the theater world to choose from. The industry is predominantly white, straight, and cis; thus these are what we see mostly reflected on stage. What the students see the professionals do will ultimately be mimicked as a means of learning from the experts. These viewpoints are slowly changing. The key word being slowly. While the relationship between other theater students and trans actors is currently shifting, I believe the traditional theater education we receive still upholds old school frames of reference towards trans performance.
The next generation of theater, while more progressive, continues to promote the old values and traditions of the stage. For every step forward, I feel as though there isn’t so much a step back — rather, the ankle of a person walking has given out and they can’t really move.
While my opinions thus far have been in the educational areas of theater, I believe the small homegrown microaggressions in local theater circles stems from the poor representation on Broadway and other major pinnacles of professional theater. Expanding from small personal experiences to the wider art form as a whole — there is the tried and true Broadway tradition of man-in-a-dress cross dressing. The act is usually played for a laugh; the idea of seeing a person assigned male at birth fail to pass as a woman, is made a mockery, with a few exceptions. The most recent example on Broadway is the musical adaptation of Mrs. Doubtfire, where the main character Daniel disguises himself as an older woman as a ruse to deceive his ex-wife and spend time with his children. However, it extends back through Broadway with the recent Tootsie, Peter and the Starcatcher, the classic Chicago, Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, and Sondheim’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, just to name a few. Most of these instances of crossdressing are made for laughs or used as a means of deception: a cis man is trying to hide his true identity to gain something from other characters.
This is poorly counterbalanced by too few instances of good cross dressing examples from the theater. Good representation for all the steps it takes forward, still relies on the old tropes to make their points. In La Cage Aux Folles, the representation of a drag queen on stage is not used as the means of a joke. The act one finale where Albin triumphantly declares “I am what I am” stands as one of my favorite moments from Broadway, but the plot still revolves around Albin using his drag persona as a way of deceiving other characters into thinking that he, his husband George, and his son Jean-Michel are a heteronormative family unit. Kinky Boots features the drag queen Lola as one of its core characters; someone who is fiercely himself. The show ends, however, with protagonist, Charlie, trying to model drag queen boots himself in a comedic bit of “ha ha, man in women’s clothing” before Lola enters to save the runway fashion show, in an admittedly cool finale. Each step forward I think stands on the shoulders of how the trope started, still incorporating lies and deception while drawing lines in the sand of who can wear what. Albin still uses his drag persona to lie, and Charlie can never pass off as a queen like Lola.
There are still some gray areas in the industry as well, and that mostly falls in the area of trans and gender nonconforming characters being played by cisgendered actors. The most notable example being the titular Hedwig in Hedwig and The Angry Inch — a character that goes through a botched sex change operation. She presents as female but was assigned male at birth. Playwright John Cameron Mitchell, though, has expressed that she isn’t either of these, stating she is genderqueer and doesn’t fit under the labels of man or woman. However, when Hedwig made its broadway debut in 2014, the role was taken up by Neal Patrick Harris, a cisgendered man and a member of the LGBTQ community. Can a cis actor bring to the table the necessary experience it takes to play a character that feels trapped in her own physical body? Who experiences horrible heartbreak for not passing off as a cisgendered woman? Maybe. But it could be argued the actor will never experience that kind of role; they’ll only play it onstage.
There have also been recent incidents of trans and non-binary erasure from the stage as roles are rewritten to be more conforming with the norm and amass wider audiences. The recently closed Jagged Little Pill had garnered controversy surrounding the character of Jo, portrayed by cis-gendered actress Lauren Patten. The role was originally written to be non-binary during the show’s original Off-Broadway run, which in and of itself could be viewed as problematic because it’s a missed opportunity that would’ve increased inclusion of gender non-conforming actors on the stage. On top of this, when the show moved to Broadway, Jo was rewritten to be a cisgender woman — erasing any instances of the they/them pronouns used in the original script. Patten is quoted as saying “Jo never was written as anything other than cis,” completely erasing the non-binary representation from the record. Having a cisgendered woman portray someone who doesn’t conform to the binary and then having her essentially use doublethink to push that Jo’s always been a woman is a step backwards in progression. This controversy hung over the show’s head for the remainder of its run, until its closing in December of 2021.When I look back on my own experiences with coming out and trying to figure out what kind of non-binary person I am, I realize that the theater community might have been the worst place for me to explore it. While there are more actively hateful groups out there, being in a community that revolves around performance makes it very hard to tell when people are being honest or when anyone is being taken seriously. Transphobia is written into our history as actors; the industry is rampant with examples that make a mockery at the thought of someone wearing an article of clothing they shouldn’t. I, myself, took part in multiple cross dressing roles before I knew who I really was. I viewed it as something comedic, something to gawk at. In hindsight I shouldn’t find it surprising that when I came out to some of my closest friends in Temple’s theater department, I was met with ambivalence, constant misgendering, and was still treated and viewed as a man. We are taught that, for the most part, the men’s wigs, bras, and dresses come off as soon as the actor exits stage. “Gender is a performance” is a classic phrase I’ve heard, but the lines between where that performance ends and reality begins is absolutely blurred when the stage is put into play. I feel as though, even if I get my fellow creatives to address me as they/them, it doesn’t inherently change how they view me. They may still peg me down as a male, just with a new sparkly coat of paint in the shade of pronouns, which kind of defeats the whole purpose. That isn’t really acceptance; it is a perpetuation of the performance. Your label may have changed but the character analysis stays the same. I can’t be myself in your eyes if you’ll just view me as a man putting on a show of makeup and self expression.
So how does the industry change from here? It’s very hard for the newest generation to change much when they were taught in institutions that instilled in them older values. The people at the top seem pretty content keeping things the way they are, and the people at the bottom can’t change it when they’re still actively upholding it. I think, honestly, it’s not going to come from a college degree. I think being an active theater participant in the local scene is what is truly required. Seeing local drag shows, exploring new LGBT playwrights and queer-focused theater companies can be really beneficial to normalizing change and acceptance.. I don’t think I’ll find the perfect gender inclusive community in Temple Theaters. In hopes of instituting change and becoming a more diligent member in both the theater and LGBTQ community, I’ve decided it’s time I sit in on my own local performances. If I can’t stumble across a community that accepts me completely, I’ll make it a mission to find one elsewhere.