Oh no he didn’t!
“And then Sylvia, I was like ‘Oh no he didn’t!’”—I remember whispering to my friend as we were sitting in the BAM theater waiting for Taming of the Shrew to begin. Not having seen a female Katherine any where near the stage, I assumed the Propeller Co. was having some last minute troubles with their female lead so I just resumed the conversation with my friend. Boy was I in oblivious shock! I honestly could not accept, for the entire first 15 minutes of Taming of the Shrew, the fact that no actress of the female sex was going to appear on stage. However, once the play got into its flow, I became so caught up in the story itself that I forgot all about my initial shock and dismay at not seeing real women play the female roles on-stage. I can honestly say that I felt a somewhat similar shock during certain pique scenes of Spring Awakening, because I never imagined that a musical would go that far and stray so much from the typical G-rated musical that I was used to; as did the Propeller Co. in their transgender productions of Taming of the Shrew and Twelfth Night.
The research I did on the popularity of transgender roles in the performing arts, combined with discussions we had about transgression in the CHC class, have both helped me make better sense of this unique art experience. I now enjoy receiving such shocks from the performing arts because I think it makes the performance all the more memorable and I really develop an appreciation for the entire troupe for not being afraid to go against the canons of performing a typical Broadway or off-Broadway performance. I found this extreme quote by Nick Zedd in the book Cinema of Transgression Manifesto: “We propose that all film schools be blown up and all boring films never be made again.”—even though Zedd is referring to transgressive films being better than boring films, I can totally see this phrase being applied to transgressive theater—mostly because I have been exposed to so many venues of transgressive theater and art, that even though it has shocked me at first, it has also kept me enthralled all the more ever since. Having seen the unique transgender performance of Taming of the Shrew and the quite shockingly unique musical, Spring Awakening, I am truly proud to say that I have learned to value transgressive themes in all of the performing arts.
-Marianna Davydova
