Ecstatic
04-17-2006, 01:51 AM
Just got back from Boston's Offensive Theatre production of Christine Jorgensen Reveals, so here's my review:
The play was outstanding, both conceptually and as performance. I assume you all know Christine Jorgensen was America's first famous post-op transsexual, having had her genital reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952. She was extremely intelligent, articulate, and knowledgable about gender issues, and 50 years ahead of her time. She very openly discussed how difficult her life was prior to her transformation and how it opened up for her afterwards; what it was like to go through the transformation (which was so rare at that point in history); her friendship with several famous people (including Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Durante); her caberet act; being banned in Boston (which got a strong response from the Boston audience); but most importantly about gender bias and being true to yourself.
After the performance, the Offensive Theatre (Boston's gay, lesbian, bi and transgender theatre company) had a dialogue with a transgendered woman, another woman (I honestly didn't catch whether she was trans- or cis-sexual, and I couldn't tell), and Bradford Louryk (the actor who played Christine). The transsexual woman commented that what astounds her the most about Christine is that there has been little improvement to her politics since 1957. I found that to be very true, as Christine very clearly articulated the viewpoint that gender is a social construct, and that all people are transgendered in the sense that we all partake of a combination of male and female attributes. In fact, she said that no one can be more than 80% male or 80% female (obviously not in terms of sexual reproductive organs, but in terms of one's whole being). When asked if she considered herself a woman, she replied that that was really a complicated question, talked about the mix of male/female gender attributes in all people, and concluded by saying that she definitely feels much more woman than she does man.
My wife (a staunch supported of GLBT rights though purely hetero in her own orientation) and I left early into the discussion, but I did share that I have several transgendered friends, including several from Thailand. I said that I definitely agreed that Christine had so clearly articulated gender issues 50 years ago and that society is only now finally catching up, citing the recent Felicity Huffman movie, Transamerica, and the continually improving portrayal of transsexual women on tv shows such as Nip/Tuck and Grey's Anatomy, and that while Thailand (thanks to its Buddhist culture) remains the model for the rest of the world, the West is improving all the time.
As for the performance: it was stunning. Louryk captured every nuance of Christine's mannerisms, and his lip synching was so perfect that you could have sworn he was speaking the role. He even had every little movement coordinated with spurious sounds on the recording, such as fingernails across fabric which was heard distinctly at a couple of points, when he pretended to flick something off his skirt, or the sound of a squeaking chair as he shifted his sitting position. It was just him on the stage with a black-and-white, early 50's style (round screen) TV, which featured Rob Grace lip synching Nipsey Russell's voice (interesting in itself, as Russell was black and Grace is white).
The play was outstanding, both conceptually and as performance. I assume you all know Christine Jorgensen was America's first famous post-op transsexual, having had her genital reassignment surgery in Denmark in 1952. She was extremely intelligent, articulate, and knowledgable about gender issues, and 50 years ahead of her time. She very openly discussed how difficult her life was prior to her transformation and how it opened up for her afterwards; what it was like to go through the transformation (which was so rare at that point in history); her friendship with several famous people (including Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Durante); her caberet act; being banned in Boston (which got a strong response from the Boston audience); but most importantly about gender bias and being true to yourself.
After the performance, the Offensive Theatre (Boston's gay, lesbian, bi and transgender theatre company) had a dialogue with a transgendered woman, another woman (I honestly didn't catch whether she was trans- or cis-sexual, and I couldn't tell), and Bradford Louryk (the actor who played Christine). The transsexual woman commented that what astounds her the most about Christine is that there has been little improvement to her politics since 1957. I found that to be very true, as Christine very clearly articulated the viewpoint that gender is a social construct, and that all people are transgendered in the sense that we all partake of a combination of male and female attributes. In fact, she said that no one can be more than 80% male or 80% female (obviously not in terms of sexual reproductive organs, but in terms of one's whole being). When asked if she considered herself a woman, she replied that that was really a complicated question, talked about the mix of male/female gender attributes in all people, and concluded by saying that she definitely feels much more woman than she does man.
My wife (a staunch supported of GLBT rights though purely hetero in her own orientation) and I left early into the discussion, but I did share that I have several transgendered friends, including several from Thailand. I said that I definitely agreed that Christine had so clearly articulated gender issues 50 years ago and that society is only now finally catching up, citing the recent Felicity Huffman movie, Transamerica, and the continually improving portrayal of transsexual women on tv shows such as Nip/Tuck and Grey's Anatomy, and that while Thailand (thanks to its Buddhist culture) remains the model for the rest of the world, the West is improving all the time.
As for the performance: it was stunning. Louryk captured every nuance of Christine's mannerisms, and his lip synching was so perfect that you could have sworn he was speaking the role. He even had every little movement coordinated with spurious sounds on the recording, such as fingernails across fabric which was heard distinctly at a couple of points, when he pretended to flick something off his skirt, or the sound of a squeaking chair as he shifted his sitting position. It was just him on the stage with a black-and-white, early 50's style (round screen) TV, which featured Rob Grace lip synching Nipsey Russell's voice (interesting in itself, as Russell was black and Grace is white).