I turn fifty next month. And I’ve been thinking about age and ageing.
I live in a
country where my life expectancy is 83 years and the life expectancy of an
Indigenous man is a decade lower. Gay and bisexual men, just half my lifetime
ago, might not have survived past their fifties.
For
transgender people, well, there hasn’t been any real, wide-ranging studies.
There is a statistic
that floats around, though. The average life expectancy for a trans woman is
thirty-five years old. And Bayley is just about to turn thirty-five. Will she
make it to thirty-six, she wonders. She’s already died once, of course. In
transition. That’s why the name from her previous lifetime is a deadname.
Thirty-Six is a beautifully touching confessional
play that contrasts Bayley’s young life with her friend, mentor and teacher, Jo,
who is seventy-five. She’s flown past that dubious stat by more than forty
years, but then Jo didn’t transition until she was fifty. There were no words
for her when she was growing up, even though she felt wrong looking in a mirror
when she was five.
Bayley isn’t
sure there are words for her now, either. Because the history of trans people
has been buried alongside them. And right now, their existence and validity is
being questioned all over the world. No wonder Bayley has had a vision for her
own funeral since she was a teenager. If she isn’t going to live long, her
memorial might as well be memorable.
The play,
the latest from theatre company Bullet Heart Club and director Kitan Petkovski
(who had a remarkable 2024), is as life-affirming as it is death-confronting.
It’s a call to arms, a call to action – a scream in defiance of a world that
buys into the “tragic queer” narrative of trans people now as it did with gay
men in the 1980s.
Or any LGBT+
people in the centuries before.
Bayley, who
has worked as an intimacy co-ordinator at theatre companies across this
country, stands tall and stalks around the stage, microphone in hand, talking
about her life – her lives – and the people who have taught her how to be
confident. How to be her genuine self. How to be a woman.
Aron Murray’s
video design throws Bayley’s image onto the back wall and a sheer curtain to
one side of the stage, allowing her to be both more imposing and more
vulnerable at once. Bethany J Fellows’ set is like a peek backstage. The table
in the centre is both for make-up and for ritual and a mixture of both. Gender
is performative, after all.
We hear voiceover
from Jo, whose wisdom and poetry have helped Bayley make sense of the world
along the way. A world that has slowly changed by having her and Jo in it.
Performer Alexandra Amerides accompanies as the voice of Bayley’s friends and
allies, as well as bringing his beautiful singing voice to the mix, offering
striking interpretations of important songs in Bayley’s life.
Bayley is
so generous in her writing and her performance, being totally honest about her
experiences of coming out, of transitioning and how even she has privileges she
must acknowledge. For starters, she might be too tall and imposing to be easily
"hate crimed". And at least she lives in a country with universal health care and
gun control.
This show
at Forty-five Downstairs feels welcoming and safe, even as it opens up wounds
old and new. There are specific content warnings. There’s the offer to leave
and rejoin, if it all gets too much. And after the acknowledgement of country,
there’s an acknowledgement that the world is hard right now. The best place to
be might be in a theatre, deconstructing and reconstructing gender.
Thirty-five
is not the life-expectancy of trans women here or anywhere. It’s a scare
tactic. It tells a story that a society, wary of the LGBTQIA+ community, wants
to hear.
It’s not
true. Bayley will live much longer than that. Jo is proof that it can be done.
But there’s
still too many trans lives cut too short. And surviving is still an
achievement.
Bayley
knows – she’s learned – that her being trans is the start of a change in the
world. A world freed from being bound by binaries. A better world for all of us
to age in.
- Keith Gow, Theatre First
Thirty-Six is on at Forty-five Downstairs as part of Melbourne’s Midsumma Festival
Photos: James Reiser
Comments