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juushikaYesterday I was set to visit my family in the evening when I got an email saying they'd remembered they had play tickets, so I moved my plans up an hour, then my mother offered me her ticket. In the end, Dad and I went out to dinner and the play. It was an unexpectedly long and active visit! on four hours of sleep! but certainly fulfilled "meaningful family time."
Dinner was the Woodsman, the closest thing to good "local" Thai, one town over. My dad recommended the palam, a peanut curry over fresh spinach, which I tried because I do like all those ingredients despite that I am the least adventuresome of all possible diners. It was awesome, in every sense: servings there are towering, gigantic—a huge bowl of piled, falling fresh spinach wilting in a sea of peanut curry. The peanut was intense, salty savory and just a little sweet, incredibly strong; so many roasted chopped peanuts; spinach fresh and crunchy, tofu unfried and soft. I ate maybe a fourth of the dish and the leftovers almost didn't fit in the take-home container. Frankly intimidating, and incredibly good.
The play was a polished script reading of Anna Ziegler's Boy, a fictionalized account of the life of David Reimer, who was assigned female after birth and part of the "John/Joan" experiment. (Part of the reason my mum gave me her ticket is because she knew I would probably be more interested in its gender issues than she was, which is true, because I was previously aware of Reimer's case.) The Majestic does monthly readings that are performed one day only; my parents say they've grown more fleshed out, minimalist costuming and props but players still working from scripts. (They also did a Q&A with director and cast for the first time this month, but we skipped it because it had been a long day.) It's a great balance of low-key, inexpensive production and watchability, both in the sense of feeling practiced and in the general quality of the acting. The lead actor was especially strong in a demanding role, alternating between a female-assigned child and an early 20s man.
I am of conflicted feelings regarding the play. I enjoyed it, it's emotionally engaging and I resonate with the narrative-about-narratives, and the lead's ability to carry such a heavy weight is the fulcrum of success. Reimer's case is inherently complex; it's not exclusively about nature/nurture, or gender existentialism, or even (although it is significantly) about the fact that individuals are the gender they say they are & are entitled to inhabit and express that gender no matter what it is or how it interacts with their bodies—it's also about medical abuse. The play channels that later into the argument that you can sincerely love someone and cause them unforgivable harm, and that's an argument which is close to my heart and which I think is an appropriate representation of this doctor/patient dynamic. But the play's other major narrative is that self-knowledge and -acceptance can be mirrored in reconciliations with and/or acceptance by loved ones, and it frames that as an end point#151;which, in the real case, it was not: Reimer's familial and romantic relationships were troubled, and he committed suicide.
Reimer's case is so complex and has had such lasting impact in how we view gender and "confirmation" surgeries, especially in children; I understand how compelling it can be—:I learned of it through Law & Order: SVU!—and believe popular and fictional depictions allow us to discover and explore its complexities. I also understand the value in a narrative that insists reclaiming your identity will make you happy—there's an inherent social value in "it gets better," as well as a narrative value in a happy ending. But it bothers me because Reimer's experience is not apocryphal, not a narrative; it is recent history: he died in 2004. There are probably still surviving family members, people being depicted in these retellings. Reimer committed suicide after separating from his wife—so what does her fictional equivalent in Boy say to her: if you had stayed, he could have had a happy ending? How unfair, how simplistic. There is also value in the instance that it does not get better, because it validates the trauma that people experience and its profound, lasting effects; also because, in this case, it more accurately depicts a real person's story and his decision to end his life.
It reminds me of a section from Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places where he looks into a 1949 murder that took place where I lived in Portland. As explained in this interview:
Reimer's case has a huge and complex legacy; he was also a real person, not that long ago. Anyway, I have two modes of critical response, and the first was "uh huh, mhm, I thought the staging was surprisingly successful and that lead can really act" and the latter was a 15 minute verbal essay about the complicated ethics of adaptation theory that I delivered in the car on our way home. The car smelled profoundly of peanut sauce. It was a good evening, after which my sleep deprivation caught up with me and I slept for a combined 16 hour over three blocks.
Dinner was the Woodsman, the closest thing to good "local" Thai, one town over. My dad recommended the palam, a peanut curry over fresh spinach, which I tried because I do like all those ingredients despite that I am the least adventuresome of all possible diners. It was awesome, in every sense: servings there are towering, gigantic—a huge bowl of piled, falling fresh spinach wilting in a sea of peanut curry. The peanut was intense, salty savory and just a little sweet, incredibly strong; so many roasted chopped peanuts; spinach fresh and crunchy, tofu unfried and soft. I ate maybe a fourth of the dish and the leftovers almost didn't fit in the take-home container. Frankly intimidating, and incredibly good.
The play was a polished script reading of Anna Ziegler's Boy, a fictionalized account of the life of David Reimer, who was assigned female after birth and part of the "John/Joan" experiment. (Part of the reason my mum gave me her ticket is because she knew I would probably be more interested in its gender issues than she was, which is true, because I was previously aware of Reimer's case.) The Majestic does monthly readings that are performed one day only; my parents say they've grown more fleshed out, minimalist costuming and props but players still working from scripts. (They also did a Q&A with director and cast for the first time this month, but we skipped it because it had been a long day.) It's a great balance of low-key, inexpensive production and watchability, both in the sense of feeling practiced and in the general quality of the acting. The lead actor was especially strong in a demanding role, alternating between a female-assigned child and an early 20s man.
I am of conflicted feelings regarding the play. I enjoyed it, it's emotionally engaging and I resonate with the narrative-about-narratives, and the lead's ability to carry such a heavy weight is the fulcrum of success. Reimer's case is inherently complex; it's not exclusively about nature/nurture, or gender existentialism, or even (although it is significantly) about the fact that individuals are the gender they say they are & are entitled to inhabit and express that gender no matter what it is or how it interacts with their bodies—it's also about medical abuse. The play channels that later into the argument that you can sincerely love someone and cause them unforgivable harm, and that's an argument which is close to my heart and which I think is an appropriate representation of this doctor/patient dynamic. But the play's other major narrative is that self-knowledge and -acceptance can be mirrored in reconciliations with and/or acceptance by loved ones, and it frames that as an end point#151;which, in the real case, it was not: Reimer's familial and romantic relationships were troubled, and he committed suicide.
Reimer's case is so complex and has had such lasting impact in how we view gender and "confirmation" surgeries, especially in children; I understand how compelling it can be—:I learned of it through Law & Order: SVU!—and believe popular and fictional depictions allow us to discover and explore its complexities. I also understand the value in a narrative that insists reclaiming your identity will make you happy—there's an inherent social value in "it gets better," as well as a narrative value in a happy ending. But it bothers me because Reimer's experience is not apocryphal, not a narrative; it is recent history: he died in 2004. There are probably still surviving family members, people being depicted in these retellings. Reimer committed suicide after separating from his wife—so what does her fictional equivalent in Boy say to her: if you had stayed, he could have had a happy ending? How unfair, how simplistic. There is also value in the instance that it does not get better, because it validates the trauma that people experience and its profound, lasting effects; also because, in this case, it more accurately depicts a real person's story and his decision to end his life.
It reminds me of a section from Colin Dickey's Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places where he looks into a 1949 murder that took place where I lived in Portland. As explained in this interview:
Many ghost stories are based on past tragedies, but when I first learned about Thelma Taylor's story, I was struck because this wasn't a tragedy from the 19th century, but something still fairly recent. People still have memories of Thelma Taylor—including her sister, whom I interviewed for the book—and that changes the way we might otherwise approach any stories of her ghost haunting Portland. I wanted to write about her story to examine how a relatively recent tragedy can be transformed—almost in real time—into a ghost legend.
Reimer's case has a huge and complex legacy; he was also a real person, not that long ago. Anyway, I have two modes of critical response, and the first was "uh huh, mhm, I thought the staging was surprisingly successful and that lead can really act" and the latter was a 15 minute verbal essay about the complicated ethics of adaptation theory that I delivered in the car on our way home. The car smelled profoundly of peanut sauce. It was a good evening, after which my sleep deprivation caught up with me and I slept for a combined 16 hour over three blocks.
