Queer stories are often interrogated beyond reason with the question “Who is this for?” I saw a reel on Instagram just last night that classified Fire Island as “for gays” and BROS as “for straights” and Brokeback Mountain as “for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association”, who gives out the Golden Globes. Heated Rivalry is for straight women and Roland Emmerich’s ahistorical drama Stonewall is for nobody.
Marginalised
communities are protective of their lived experience and don’t want it to be
smoothed over for wide consumption. It’s important that queer narratives are
written by queer people so they are infused with their truth. It’s invaluable
that during Midsumma, the stories of LGBTQI+ theatremakers and artists are
showcased across the city. Right now, nestled inside the overarching Midsumma
is the Trans Theatre Festival, showcasing works of the trans experience that
have been uplifting and confronting and revolutionary.
At
Fortyfive Downstairs, as part of Midsumma, is trans writer Ben MacEllen’s debut
play, The Placeholder. Initially set against the backdrop of the plebiscite
that debated queer Australians’ right to marry, the play is about a group of
women who have bonded together over the loss of their friend Barb to breast cancer.
As a group, they are Barb’s Bosom Buddies, raising money for breast cancer
research by selling badges at the local market in their small country town.
One day,
one of the Bosom Buddies, Nic (Oliver Ayres), comes out as a trans man, which
unearths a lot of unpacked grief, trauma, unexamined homophobia and
internalised misogyny. Pat (Meredith Rogers), the matriarchal figure of the
bunch, takes Nic’s coming out in stride. Helen (Michelle Perera) is the type of
ally who tries too hard, but she’s also dealing with new information about her
pansexual daughter and their non-binary partner. Keira (Rebecca Bower) is an
old-school, dyed-in-the-wool “gold star lesbian” who thinks Nic should just be
a butch dyke. And Joanna (Brigid Gallacher) is a full-on TERF, her bigotry on
full display.
I think a trans
coming out story that focuses on the fall-out amongst the cis characters is a great choice, but it creates a situation where every one of these women
makes Nic’s transition all about themselves. The one character whose life is
going to change the most because of Nic’s transition is his current partner,
Jess (Alessandro Merlo), but she is given short-shrift by the narrative. She’s
not one of the “bosom buddies”, so she mostly gets forgotten. She has to make a
decision about whether she still loves Nic or can be with him, but it's mostly skipped over.
As the play
progresses, more and more revelations are brought to the table (central to designer
Bethany J Fellows’ extremely naturalistic kitchen) and it starts to feel like
MacEllen has a lot to say about a lot of different things and Nic’s story is simply
a catalyst to the rest of the ensemble’s trauma dumping. There are moments of surprise
from Nic: their idea to post a death notice for their previous self really embraces
honouring their “dead name” and a one-night-only nothing-off-limits Q&A
about his experience suggests a fiery night of interrogation. But while these
moments lead to conflict, we learn much more about the womens’ biases than we
do about Nic’s (later Nathan's) life.
Which is
what led me to wondering who this is for. As a play at Midsumma, much of the
audience can relate to “coming out” and the surprising reactions of friends and
loved-ones: representation is important. But the characters often play as
types, mouthing cliches and a long list of triggering thoughts and phrases. Perhaps
this is for people who haven’t been with queer people during the coming out
phase? Maybe it will prick some peoples’ consciences about their unexamined biases?
At over
two-and-a-half hours, The Placeholder is too long. It feels like a
missed opportunity to not cut this large ensemble down and focus on the
interesting parallels that MacEllen does bring out. Joanna has breast cancer and
faces losing her breasts to a mastectomy, while Nic moves closer to top surgery
– and both characters have a deep-seated fear that their partners will no longer
love them. But very little is made of this. Nic is changing themselves
physically, while Pat is starting to lose her memories because of dementia. But
the contrast doesn't amount to anything.
On top of
this, there’s discussions of child death (an unintended allusion to Tom Stoppard’s
“a child’s purpose” speech from The Coast of Utopia?) and alcoholism and a
late-play sudden disability for one of the characters.
Interspersed
with the action of the play are audio grabs from news of 2017-18. The debate
over marriage equality feels resonant, but doesn’t really enhance the production.
Having to listen to Malcolm Turnbull take credit is as revolting now as it was
then. As the show progresses, the news bites become less and less salient and
by the time we are hearing about the cave rescue in Thailand, it starts to
grate. A period piece from less than ten years ago? The conversations have
changed a lot since then, often for the worse. But grounding the work to
specifically that time makes this new work feel dated.
There is something to be said for a traditional genre of theatre – the kitchen-sink drama – being queered but issue plays can become didactic, no matter what the subject matter. Director Kitan Petkovski’s theatre company Bullet Heart Club is dedicated to making work centring the trans experience and their shows like Thirty-Six or Sugar or The Hall are all fresh and exciting.
The Placeholder lacks the nuance of those other shows, even with an exciting spark of an idea at its centre.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
It’s playing at Fortyfive Downstairs as part of Midsumma until February 8
Cheers queers!
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