Monday, March 2, 2009
Christine Jorgensen Reveals
Posted by A.H. Buchbinder at 9:54 PM
http://nyculturevulture.blogspot.com/2009/03/christine-jorgenson-reveals.htmlReal life is rarely as compelling as theater, but when real life drama and the theatre collude, mesmerizing pieces like Christine Jorgensen Reveals are born. The play is the brain child of actor Bradford Louryk, who discovered a 1952 LP of the only recorded interview with America's first male-to-female transsexual. After listening to the interview, Louryk realized that he needed to share this story. Instead of adapting the interview for the stage, he presents it as is, but with a twist—he lip-synchs to the recording.
The immediate effect is dissonant. Actually, the first few minutes after Louryk enters as Jorgensen are disorienting, on both a historical and theatrical level. He walked on dressed in an elegant, 1950s, skirt suit of crisp, green, satin. His jacket's three quarter length sleeves revealed pale, soft arms. He wears a Marilyn Monroe blond wig and sports perfect, heart-shaped, red lips. Transsexuals are still rare enough even today that the dissonance is almost historic. Although this was technically only cross dressing, as an audience, we gave the same silent, appraising glances that Jorgensen's contemporaries undoubtedly gave, asking what is feminine and what is masculine here? Where is the man underneath that chiffon, make-up, nail polish?
