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The Art of Politics

Tris/Tristan

by Judy Osborne

What will it take finally to help society understand transfolks? How can the masses be brought to know us as a people of dignity and substance? Will we ever find acceptance, respect, inclusion?

Surely such good things will start to happen when we present ourselves pridefully to the world, fight for political equality, come out of hiding, and do good works.

But art can make such things happen too. Works created by and about transpeople can spread understanding and empathy to the masses. Even now rock musicians play with gender, Dana International wins singing fame, Leslie Feinberg and Kate Bornstein write insider books, Mariette Pathy Allen and Loren Cameron publish our photographs, and countless caricatures of ourselves appear in movies and sitcoms. Still, nothing about who we really are has achieved mass appeal or stimulated the imagination of society.

A reason to be optimistic came about during Esprit last month. Held annually in a tiny Northwest logging town, this year's convention achieved something remarkable. Transgendered men and women actually enjoyed each other's company, played together, shared. Esprit organizers planned the events to minimize separate tracks and spaces and generate activities which brought the women and the men together.

A number of things encouraged us to interact, the neatest of which was a dramatic reading of a new play by transperson Jeff Shevlowitz. Entitled All of Her Life, the play tracks a mother's heartbreaking struggle over thirty years to deal with her daughter's growth into manhood.

Playing in our preferred-gender roles, the all-trans cast was light on experience but rich in motivation. Elaine Lerner starred as Marcia, the mother. Philip (not his real name, by request) played husband Lenny, and author Shevlowitz portrayed the daughter/son Patricia/Tristan. Max Fuhrman read the role of Patricia's brother Mark. Tristan's girlfriend/wife Tami was played by someone aptly named Tami. I had a supporting role as Vicky, Marcia's sister-in-law and confidant. Pat McGee performed a whole variety of small parts.

We presented the play Friday evening after a banquet. Believe it or not, nightlife does exist in Port Angeles, Washington. Most of the Esprit gang headed out to partake of it. Out of the one hundred and thirty or so transpeople and friends attending the convention, we managed to snag about thirty drama lovers for a loyal audience. Once we started, nobody left.

In a flashback beginning just after the play opens, a new family member is about to be born into Marcia, Lenny and son Mark's family. It becomes evident that Marcia wants a girl, while Lenny wouldn't mind another son. Patricia is born. They nickname her "Trish", but little Mark pronounces it "Tris" and they all end up calling her that. Tris is a tomboy from the start, loving rough play with Mark and Lenny and avoiding the feminine things her mom wants to dress her in and do with her. We see the kids grow up as good and interesting people in a fun-loving family, their serenity marred only by Marcia's horror in reaction to her daughter's increasingly evident wish to be a boy and become a man. Ultimately Tris does just that. Tristan finds a loving relationship with Tami. Marcia rejects her daughter, now son, while Lenny accepts him without understanding. Over time, several dramatic events cause Marcia to revisit her rejection of Tristan. Marcia struggles to cope with the loss of her daughter. Her tragic effort drives the dramatic resolution of the play.

The dialog of All of Her Life is incredibly real. Even as rank amateurs, and without benefit of any rehearsal, we soon found we could bounce the lines off each other in the way authentic conversation happens. The script drew from us the timing, the expressions, the inflections, the emotions, and the body language we needed to convey the compelling dramatic experience. We became the people we portrayed. We found ourselves expressing our own anguish, joy, hope, anger and fear, enmeshed as we were in the evolving tragedy of the drama. When the performance ended, we looked up to find not a dry eye in the house.

Playwright Jeff Shevlowitz became a full-time man in 1982, lives near Los Angeles, and has accumulated vast experience making the rounds. He's deeply into the frustrating process that all emerging dramatic writers go through to get one of his works produced. Producers increasingly are willing to sit still and listen to his pitches, and he has sold a premise for a network series episode. All of Her Life made it into the quarter finals of Fade In magazine's annual screenwriting contest. Shevlowitz hopes to hear from the Sundance screenwriting competition by the end of this month and has submitted the script for an October decision on a Disney screenwriter fellowship.

Accepting that performers and the audience viewed the play with an obvious bias, the theme and treatment of All of Her Life appeared to everyone to have a powerful universal appeal. It's not necessary to be transgendered to be moved by this drama. Elements of pain and loss, love and rejection, happiness destroyed without reason, courage, pathos, humor, and kindness abound in the work. The audience isn't forced into a conclusion, but anyone watching this play is forced to think and feel and care. Says playwright Shevlowitz, "I didn't want this to be a movie that's shown at gay and lesbian film festivals, preaching to the choir. I want this to be in mainstream theaters so that everyone can say 'I would never bring up my child that way', or even 'I can understand where that mother is coming from'."

Let's hope this drama does make it to mainstream theaters, because it will do much to make us more comprehensible to society and deserving of respect and inclusion. As long as we're hoping and dreaming, isn't it about time for a transperson to climb the steps and bound across the stage to accept a beautiful shining statue named "Oscar"?

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