This Saturday, an original and unorthodox show will call Hotung Caf?© "Home." As a part of Safe Colleges Conference, "Home" will examine gender, religion and family.
The play is the brainchild of Queer Soup, a group of queer artists who collaborate to create entertaining shows with relevant messages. The play got its start during the group's usual night of round-robin writing. From there, it grew into a production which has toured at length around the Northeast. Queer Soup has never before strayed from the realm of over-the-top comedy into that of dramatic theater.
"'Home' was sort of a journey into drama and a collaborative challenge to work into that genre," lead playwright Jess Martin said.
The show's premise questions our society's conception of sexuality, God and family while exploring the diverse spectrum of gender identity. After her grandfather's death, Minister Lulu Edwards (Becca Lewis) learns that he was transgender. Lulu feels that her grandfather lied to her about his sexuality, even though he had always identified as a male, and she subsequently lashes out at her family. Complicating Lulu's confusion over her grandfather's sex is the discovery that her romantic interest, Kai (Karen 'Mal' Malme), is "genderqueer" and works as a drag king.
The organization of the play is as original as its plot. There is no intermission during the 90 minutes that Lulu struggles to reconcile herself with her loved ones' sexuality, the actors never leave the stage and the versatile set is minimalist.
"One of the challenges of writing [the show] was that we wanted immediacy. There's no opportunity for the energy to leave the stage," Martin said.
Though Lulu is a lesbian, "Home" is more interested in giving voice to people who identify as transgender. "There's not a lot of theater around these people's lives. There's this silence. These are stories that need to be told that aren't necessarily out there, and we felt a responsibility to create a piece that gives voice to them," Malme said.
Because transgender people don't fit into the mainstream dichotomies of male and female or straight and gay, they often face severe discrimination and intolerance. "Transphobia is everywhere. It amazes me how, even in the queer community, there's a lot of fear around people who identify as trans," Martin said, "A really big issue in the play is feeling at home in your own body and then what the meaning of home is for each of the characters, where they feel safe. Their home is now being redefined."
"Home" addresses gender issues head-on, but audience members connect with more universal themes in the play as well. "Even though the show's about a minister, I don't think it's preachy. We aren't telling the audience 'you need to feel this.' The universal thing is loss, and that kind of bridges the other issues," Martin said, "It's universal to want to be who you are and not be judged." The play is set in a religious community, and the tie between spirituality, judgment and sexuality is something which those involved with "Home" haven't overlooked.
"There's a connection between faith and gender. They're these two issues that a lot of people don't question," Martin said.
"We're living in a time right now when there are a lot of people who throw God around like they own it, like they've got a direct line with the man upstairs," Malme said, "This is a time when we have to have the power to stand up and empower people for who they are."
Gender and sexuality are touchy subjects, and, because none of its members identify as trans, Queer Soup has been criticized for writing a show about a transgender character. However, Martin and Malme agree that expressing gender issues was well worth the hardship.
"In order to do theater you have to do what's hard in order to come to a place where you can understand," Malme said, "If we played it safe and we didn't bring out this stuff, especially the struggles within the queer community over gender, if we didn't say that stuff, then we wouldn't do justice to the play."
