BWW Reviews: The Wild But Human Side of DC Revealed in Forum's THE T PARTY

It was confusing enough growing up in the 60's and 70's, when the big question of the day was whether you (or your friends) were gay or lesbian. But with the passage of time the questions of orientation, identity, and the gender through which we choose to express ourselves have multiplied. The eternal tension between sex and socially-normative gender roles, between male and female identity, self-identification, etc., has led to the emergence of an entirely new spectrum of practices. As each new form emerges from the closet and into the mainstream, American society is tested anew for its level of tolerance and compassion.

We're not talking about anything new; gender transformation of various stripes has been with us for as long as we have walked the earth. And historically each society has made its own decisions on how to handle it; in some cases (among certain Native American peoples, for example), there is acceptance, while in others (Western culture in general and Washington DC in particular) they have almost always been regarded as a threat. The plague of recent attacks directed against the transgender community in Washington, many of them fatal, has made it impossible for us to avoid the subject. But in order to talk about it, we first need to meet the people involved, and hear their stories.

Given the high stakes involved in discussing transgender issues Forum theatre could have taken the conservative route and staged a traditional play. The passivity of the experience, however, would have given audiences an out-we could have walked away discussing "those people" and "their problems," shrugged them off and gone back to our lives. But writer and director Natsu Onoda Power has chosen instead to implicate all of us, and by involving us in the action she has made "The T Party" all the more challenging.

The performance begins informally with a variety of semi-improvised events, including a mock Prom for "Forum High" set in the seemingly distant past of 1995. The stage itself has been converted into a high school gym, alley-theatre style, with seats banked up on either side; the only thing missing is the baskets and backboards. For upwards of a ½ hour after the show's official start time, Audience members are encouraged to dance and socialize as actors and extras (labeled as "The Party People" in the program) discreetly move among them; we're even invited to vote for the Prom King and Prom Queen. Here is the first dilemma-do you vote based on their looks? Their dance moves? Their personalities? And which traits do you associate with titles like "King" and "Queen" anyway?

The festive atmosphere during the pre-show is broken, by way of foreshadowing, with confrontations over sexual orientation and with the surprising results of the vote. The lines between stage and reality are so blurred, in fact, that it isn't clear whether some of the performers during the pre-show are actors, or members of the transgender community who have been invited to bear witness to their stories, however briefly.

Having established that you as an audience member are now complicit in what follows, the cast of "The T Party" perform a series of scenes, many of them drawn directly from the lives of DC's Transgender community (the "T" of the play's title). The material ranges widely; you have a satirical a rap inspired by a scientific article on about dolphin sex, complete with a silver-unitard "dance" crew; there's even a spoof of local gay watering hole The Green Lantern as a nature preserve. But there is also a poignant love story, featuring Allie Villareal, in which a woman traces the course of her college romance with a female classmate, from first glance across the classroom through dates, through hate-crime persecution and beyond. Meanwhile, a unusual love triangle develops when a straight man (Jonathan Feurer) reveals to his wife that he enjoys adopting the persona of "Victoria," right down to the dress and heels. Now can his wife deal with "the other woman," when that woman happens to be her husband?

There are also some memorable, gender-bending spoofs of old favorites, from Chorus Line's "One Singular Sensation" to Aerosmith's "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" in which Rachel Hynes first hides and then "expresses" her female looks, along the way adopting the famous big-hair look that has made the bad boys of Rock so famous. This last routine seems to include a nod to the frenetic uniform-change sequence of the Scottish National Theatre's "Black Watch," but with a delicious twist in that the lady adopts a dude's persona (right down to the male equipment), only to be re-constructed (and de-maled) as a dude-lady.

Frank Labovitz has outdone himself for the sheer variety of costumes he has assembled-his ability to convert actors into dolphins is one of the highlights of the show. Zachary A. Dalton's lights are carefully choreographed, as are the computer-projections created by Sophia Lewin Adams and Alex Leidy. The projections in particular are fascinating, because they use the stage floor instead of the walls or ceilings, and the actors choreograph their moves in sync with Thomas Sowers' sound design and the images flashing all around them. For all the technical expertise on display, this old actor still finds the low-tech human moments to be the most touching.

This production concludes another innovative season for Forum Theatre; with the possible loss of their current Silver Spring venue, we'll just have to wait and see where they end up. But rest assured that wherever they are, Forum will be the go-to company for challenging theatre for the foreseeable future.

Featured in the production photograph: Rachel Hynes in "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)"

Photo by Melissa Blackall

Performances of The T Party concluded Saturday night, July 27.

For information about Forum Theatre's 2013-2014 season (which would be well worth the trip!) keep checking in to http://forum-theatre.com/

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