Performing Confusion: The Burning Bushes of West Side Story

So West Side Story went lesbo this weekend in Halifax--in a church, no less. The singing, the dancing, the acting--overall quite good. In fact the quality of most parts of the production was so strong, that some very particular things irritated me beyond belief. When a production is a quality production, the shortfalls do seem rather glaring--especially when they centre around the very centre of the play: the lesbians themselves.

Now: correct me if I'm wrong, but if you're the lieutenant in a gang (even if you seem to be outside said gang at the beginning of the play) AND you're a dyke, then you probably don't wear a pink shirt tied up just below your boobs with white pants. And you probably don't wear sparkly studded earrings, that flicker your femininity at the audience every time you move, right? Right? Am I the only who sees a problem with this? This is supposed to be a butch character. I'll be the first to acknowledge that not all lesbian relationships are butch-femme (nor should they be). However, if you want the Tony character to be a lesbian and not a man, should this character not be butch? Should that character not be as "tough-looking" as all the other gang members (among whom there were some pretty masculinely clad women)? The mannerisms, the inflections of voice, the dress--all feminine. Tony was a femme gangster all the way. Just goes to show that no matter how many women wear pants, female masculinity is still pretty taboo (EVEN, or perhaps especially, when it comes to representing lesbians!) We wouldn't want anyone to be _really_ pushed outside their comfort zone, now, would we?

If this were not enough to burn my bush (and, need I say, not in the good way), off I go to the bathroom during the intermission only to be subjected to yet another performance of the "comfort zone." Here are the straight people discussing their "genuine" confusion. One thought this was going to be like opera where if a female played a male role, the character in the play was still male. But she could not make sense of why other characters on stage were referred to Tony as a woman, and why Tony's full name was identified as "Antonia" (as opposed to Anthony). They stacked up more and more evidence from the play that attested to their bafflement--all of which was clear evidence that the play was being staged as a lesbian love story.

There I am, caught between an on-stage performance that is not queer enough and a bathroom assessment of that performance that is queer only in its oddness.

The moral of the story? Don't go to lesbian theater in a church.

Posted by Bush Whacker at March 4, 2003 10:34 AM