Stereotyping Trans Representation in Theatre - Toronto Fringe and Festival d'Avignon

Festival settings provide theatre productions with a good platform for discourse about minority identity because audience and performers are “drawn together from geographically dispersed locations and away from the expectations of everyday life” (Woodward & Bennett 11). In both Festival d’Avignon and Toronto Fringe, almost all the plays I watched contained overt or nuanced queer and transgender representation of some kind. Positive queer and trans representation through the depiction of complex, leading characters is a crucial step in creating a collective “socio-cultural” identity that unifies the LGBTQI+ community (Woodward & Bennett 12). However, some of the plays utilized stereotypes in their depictions of queer and trans characters, which not only undermines the creator’s intent, but also invalidates LGBTQI+ peoples who are presented in that way.

In popular culture, over half of transgender and genderqueer characters on television are characterized by GLAAD as negatively represented (GLAAD 2017). Additionally, six out of ten trans characters are either depicted as victims or villains (GLAAD 2017), which is clearly evident in the characters of Nick from Algonquin Highway at the Toronto Fringe and Madame from De Meiden at Festival d'Avignon. Nick portrays himself as a victim, relying on his gender identity as a source of shame without providing a positive message of self-independence and agency in creating a better future for himself. Meanwhile, Madame’s trans identity is used only to be the villain because director Katie Mitchell did not want to depict “women oppressing other women” (Mitchell 2017). There is a difference between a person’s gender identity and their gender expression, and Mitchell clearly depicts Madame as person who does not discern the way she dresses from her inner self, they are inextricably linked. Your gender expression does not have to align with your identity (ie identifying as a woman and appearing to be masculine), however Mitchell does portray this, which is probably not what she intended. Aside from the clear erasure of trans identity, both plays fail to recognize that through their dramaturgical decisions, they have trapped their characters into the ‘victim’ and ‘villain’ stereotypes, further cementing these representations as surface level and misguided.

These representations are what Sky Gilbert, Buddies in Bad Times co-Founder, calls “paternalistic” dramaturgy, in which theatre creators enforce strict conceptions on what makes a solid character or plot, and don’t respond to the real person’s experiences they are representing onstage (Gilbert 1996). For both shows, the directors discuss a desire to explore gender as a means of showcasing their support of the topic (“Press Release 2017; “Interview” 2017). However their lack of self-awareness about their positionality leads the audience to process these trans and gender queer stereotypes as knowledge (Hunter 152).

It is the language used in both these performance texts and the surrounding discourse among artists that needs to be reevaluated. Theatres and festivals must allow trans and queer youth artistic agency through employment, as mentioned in my first blog post, which will cultivate a successful integration of these artists into mainstream theatre (Wong 2016). As well, we should carefully consider the language in which we communicate our ideas onstage, specifically recognizing that certain words have negative connotations, such as Mitchell calling her transgender character a “transvestite” (Mitchell 2017). Transvestite is outdated and considered a derogatory term for someone who is expressing their gender fluidity, which has been frequently shortened into the even more insulting ‘tranny’ label. Jennifer McKinley correctly identified the problem when she said many theatres try to “give voice” to marginalized people, instead of showcasing them (McKinley 2017). We, as a theatre community, must reconcile this difference and include the people about whom we are writing into our collective discourse.

Works Cited

"Algonquin Highway Press Release." Toronto Fringe, 2017. Web. https:// d1vlmco8ur52ud.cloudfront.net/06-05-2017-020324-5703.pdf

Bennett, Andy, and Ian Woodward. "Festival Spaces, Identity, Experience and Belonging." The Festivalization of Culture. Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2014. 11-25. Web. 16 July 2017.

Gilbert, Sky. "Dramaturgy for Radical Theatre." Canadian Theatre Review. 1996: 25-7. Web. 23 July 2017.

Hunter, Lynette. "Situated Knowledge." Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research. - Scholarly Acts and Creative Carthographies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. 152-53. Print.

McKinley, Jennifer. “An Interview with Jennifer McKinley." Personal interview. 7 July 2017.

Mitchell, Katie. "Interview with Katie Mitchell." Interview by Marion Canelas. 2017. Print.

"Victims or Villains: Examining Ten Years of Transgender Images on Television." GLAAD. 12 Jan. 2017. Web. 23 July 2017. https://www.glaad.org/publications/victims-or-villains- examining-ten-years-transgender-images-television

Wong, Jessica. "A contemporary colour palette: Meet the exciting leaders bringing real diversity to Canadian theatre." CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 30 Apr. 2017. Web. 12 July 2017.