Cassie Workman/Giantess ☆☆☆
Soho Theatre, London
Whether transexual or not by the end of Cassie Workman’s one person show Giantess there is a good chance that you will be transpedantic, our new favourite word at queerguru. That’s because Cassie, who self describes as “pedantic first, trans second” will have armed you with enough ostentatiously witty one liners that you will be gagging for the right social moment to drop them (the one liners that is – Cassie has a few dry thoughts about the obsession with what transexuals have under their clothes). To put it bluntly Cassie says “Genitals are like Mexican food, we’re all having the same thing – just folded differently”
Styled as “the most experienced newcomer to comedy in the country” because Cassie had a lengthy career prior to transition, this show is a mix of a lifetime’s learning about identity, transition and being a comic wrapped in a fable about young girl who is spirited away by a troll as a child.
Piano playing and illustrations mark the progress as Cassie steps in and out of the fable to make wry comments, witty points and the occasional political jab. There is a fair amount of teaching as well, whether it is about trans politics, the physical challenges of transition or the techniques a comic uses to win over the empathy of an audience. The hour swam in a shoal of droll quips that will have you reaching for a napkin to write them down to seem smart later.
Some of the best material was dealing with language itself. Cassie’s personally preferred pronoun is ‘the sound of a bird mourning a shipwreck” which makes a funny but completely unpronounceable point about the nonsensical attachment people have to words. With pronouns, however, comes power and Cassie observes that her transition, though incomplete, already has her earning closer to 90 cents on the dollar.
Giantess does not have the punchy emotional climax that many autobiographical shows have. There are no tragic teary waterfalls before a redeeming self-revelation. It meanders more like the stream of conscious of an actual life lived but with thoughtful, observant chuckles in its wake.
Thu 24 Oct – Sat 2 Nov 2019
http://www.sohotheatre.com
Review by Andrew HebdenQueerguru Correspondent Andrew Hebden is a MEDIA & CULTURAL STUDIES graduate spending his career between London, Beijing and NYC as an expert in media and social trends. As part of the expanding minimalist FIRE movement he recently returned to the UK and lives in Soho. He devotes as much time as possible to the movies, theatre and the gym. His favorite thing is to try something (anything) new every day.
Labels: 2019, Andrew Hebden, London Theatre, review
