I want to meet Evan Placey. I can't help thinking that he is a walking, open wound. It's the only way I can see him having the incredible gift he has I want to meet Evan Placey. I can't help thinking that he is a walking, open wound. It's the only way I can see him having the incredible gift he has for understanding humanity the way he does.
In Pronoun, his play about Dean (formerly Izzy), a young man in transition, Placey offers a place for us to engage with the concerns of transitioning people and those who love them with compassion and empathy. No one's feelings are simply pushed aside as being irrelevant, while remaining squarely focused on Dean and what his journey is putting him through.
We get to see Josh's struggle, Dean's ex-boyfriend, as he tries to remain in Dean's life and understand what the changes mean to them both. We see the anger of Dari, Dean's sister, as the memories of her past make a profound shift (more later). We see how other friends try to offer support, continue to love, but can't help hurting Dean because they simply don't have the tools or the perspective to understand the new world they've all moved into. It is all deftly handled, and it allows us to care about Dean more than we might if the entire play was solely about Dean's trials.
I loved everything about Pronoun, but the beauty of the play, I think, can best be summed up by the aforementioned photograph scene between Dean and Dari. Evan Placey makes us care about both of them as they try to come to grips with what their lives have become. Dari hurts. Dean rages quietly within. We see genuine pain from both parties, and there is no neat and tidy resolution. It’s real and sad and painful, but it’s also a beautiful moment that ends badly for both of them -- and their parents.
Despite it all there is hope in Pronoun. So much hope. And I imagine Evan Placey's wounded self heals up just a bit every time he finishes writing a play. ...more
Even trying to write a frivolous seaside comedy, Shaw couldn't help himself. The political beast that inhabited the man still forced him to squeeze inEven trying to write a frivolous seaside comedy, Shaw couldn't help himself. The political beast that inhabited the man still forced him to squeeze in some social commentary; lucky for us, Shaw was enough of a master to make it all part of the fun.
My fun comes most from the dynamic between Gloria and her 5 shilling dentist, Valentine (played in the L.A. Theatre Works production by Siobhán Hewlett and James Callis, respectively). Their speedy love-duel courtship, especially in the hands of talented actors, matches the best parry-riposting of Oscar Wilde's finest, wittiest characters, and the laughs they generate are genuine despite the hidden depth of gender politics (albeit gender politics from the perspective of a male socialist circa 1897) that could have weighed down their lightness in the hands of a lesser dramatist.
But You Never Can Tell has much more going for it than one playful love affair. From a masquerade ball to solicitous solicitors, from lessons in parenting to the wonders of tooth extraction, Shaw pumps all his scenes full of helium and lets his fantastical balloons bob up and down while tethered to the realities of English society he couldn't help but satirize.
Though nowhere near Shaw's best work, You Never Can Tell is a personal favourite, and I'd probably have given it at least one more star if it wasn't for the fact that this L.A. Theatre Works production contained such uneven performances. While Hewlett and Callis were excellent, too many other performances were merely adequate, and one performance in particular was just plain bad (although to be fair to the actor, I feel like the performance was hampered by poor direction). Still, with no stages open a full year into COVID and no way to see You Never Can Tell in its natural element, a middling audio performance is a hell of a lot better than no performance at all. ...more
There was a moment early on in this novel when I was worried that the Leguin I love so dearly had checked out while writing The Eye of the Heron.
It wThere was a moment early on in this novel when I was worried that the Leguin I love so dearly had checked out while writing The Eye of the Heron.
It was two moments at once, actually: Luz, the main character, began to feel like a Disney Princess, just as the Shantih Towners -- the "People of Peace" -- and their non-violent philosophy looked as thought it was going to end up in the realm of fantastical naiveté. But this is Leguin -- not some easily fooled adolescent or some money hungry crafter of drivel. The Eye of the Heron avoided the pitfalls I worried about and delivered something rather beautiful in its simplicity.
It is more novella than novel, but in that condensed space Leguin weaves in many threads from the rest of her great blanket of work. There is a thread of Omelas here, a hint of The Beginning Place there, some Dispossessed over here, a tiny bit of Planet of Exile over here, and others threads that feel familiar but can't quite place.
I come away from The Eye of the Heron not knowing exactly what Leguin was trying to tell me, but knowing full well what I found on the planet Mud.
And if Disney ever decided to make an impressive and important Princess movie, this would be the place to start -- even if that was never, in any way, Leguin's intention. ...more
I am a forty-something bisexual man who lives a fairly heteronormative existence -- female partner, kids, few LGBTQ+ friends (more because of geographI am a forty-something bisexual man who lives a fairly heteronormative existence -- female partner, kids, few LGBTQ+ friends (more because of geography than anything else, but a fact nonetheless) -- and feel always apart from the queer community along with a deep guilt for not being more queer presenting. I am openly out and have been for ages, but that never feels like enough.
Sky Gilbert makes me feel even more guilty when I read her/his? work. S/he shouts into the face of the societal machine in heels and foundation and sequins, and I listen to her/him and feel shame that I've never fought as openly as Sky, never lost anyone the way Sky did, never raged against straight culture the way Sky did ... and does. My queer existence is an existence of shame and guilt and regret and unfulfilled desire, and Sky Gilbert, in Drag Queens on Trial, seems to know this about me and to be challenging me with every beat of her/his play. And it hurts. And it stings. And I love it.
I don't know that Drag Queens on Trial can be for anyone who isn't queer, but I know that it speaks to me like few things I read in 2018. This play needs to be on stage again. And soon....more
As an opening arc for an ongoing comic series, Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine might be up there with my three or four favourites of the lasAs an opening arc for an ongoing comic series, Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine might be up there with my three or four favourites of the last decade. The amazing Kelly Sue DeConnick drops us right smack into her Father Earth-Mother Space-verse, and leaves it up to us to navigate our way to understanding what the hell is going on, strategically underspecifying almost everything except what is needed to tell us about her characters and her plot in the immediate now of her tale.
There is a lot going on.
The Bitch Planet is the prison colony for the non-compliant women of Earth -- an Earth fully enveloped in a hyper-patriarchy that seems to have taken on a quasi-religious dogmatism (which reminds me of the Sons of Adam from Racoona Sheldon's Sci-Fi classic, The Screwfly Solution. Non-compliance means almost anything: being obese (so not living up to a nearly impossible physical standard), "talking back" to a husband, being unemployed, sexual orientation, being a "bad mother" and on and on. There is an insane, ultra-violent, hand ball based sport that controls the hearts and minds of Father Earth-Mother Space-verse. Media perpetuates the ills of the nastiest opinions and diverts the attention of the fooled billions. Voyeurism is rampant (and we the reader are implicated in that nasty male gaze at all times). And sexual harassment, assault and rape are ubiquitous.
And the unspoken or barely suggested background of the Father Earth-Mother Space-verse makes Bitch Planet,Vol 1: Extraordinary Machine even richer. All the non-compliance we're faced with and steered into noticing and responding to is matched by a deep level of compliance everywhere else, mostly male but also female. And then there is a hint of non-compliance amongst men too (and questions of what that means and where it will lead made for some kick ass conversations amongst those I was reading this with). There are Pervs Camps that could be the destination of a Peeping Tom guard, raising the question of what other "perversions" the camps are used to punish. Toxicity of human behaviour -- mostly masculine -- is everywhere in the background. And how the world's reached this point hang over the tale like a storm cloud.
And if that isn't enough there is the satirical awesomeness of the advertising pages that end each issue.
This is top notch comic writing. But surely anyone who reads DeConnick's work on a regular basis has come to expect that. If you happen to read these words, though, Kelly Sue, can I ask a favour? Can you take your extraordinary talent and write us a Sci-Fi novel? You see, we lost a goddess of Sci-Fi literature recently, and we could sure use your voice in prose too. ...more
Oh Tori Telfer! I agree. Your thesis that these women were criminal and that their criminality was not to be bi-passed by outmoded gender biases strucOh Tori Telfer! I agree. Your thesis that these women were criminal and that their criminality was not to be bi-passed by outmoded gender biases struck a cord.
I don't think any of these people were evil. They were, however, marked, scarred by their time, their place in the world, their lives, the men they encountered, their mothers, their fathers, their siblings, and they did horrible things. Unforgivable things, things that their femininity shouldn't and couldn't erase. Women contain multitudes, and the multitudes they can contain are as ugly as what men can contain.
Torturing servants? ✓ Murdering husbands? ✓ Slaying children? ✓ Poisoning husbands? ✓ Debasing prostitutes? ✓ Corrupting holy men (hahaha! is that possible?)? Poisoning husbands? ✓ Whacking cowboys? ✓ Burning husbands? ✓ Et al. ✓
There is an ugly history of feminine violence, and Tori Telfer spells it all out, asking us to bypass mercy based in gender biases. Her thesis and argument are both convincing.
Women are marvellous, and they do marvellous, horrible, terrible things. Remind yourself with Lady Killers.
Then remember that abortion is a right ... it is bodily autonomy ... and don't conflate that right with criminality. Please. I am begging you. I won't apologize for begging that. It is a comment I had to add based on the moment I am writing this, and I stand by it.
I AM Pro-Women. I may have been Pro-Choice once upon a time, but i MUST be Pro-Women now.
If you love a woman you must support them. If you are a woman you must support each other. And I think Ms. Telfer would agree. ...more
Come get wrecked on our shore ... (Come get wrecked on our shore) They've been waiting for you ... (They've been waiting for you) Where the kisses are hCome get wrecked on our shore ... (Come get wrecked on our shore) They've been waiting for you ... (They've been waiting for you) Where the kisses are hers and hers and his, Four's company too.
Come and dress in boys clothes ... (Come and dress in boys clothes) Take a step that is new ... (Take a step that is new) We've a loveable space that needs your face, Four's company too.
You'll see Orsino's a ball again, Olivia's calling for you... Down at our rendezvous... (Down at our rendezvous) Four is company too!...more
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