hopelessgayartist

[hopelessgayartist]

me trying to understand who tf the actors are talking about core.

favourite macbeth characters:

-satan

-uncle c word

-young c word

-egg

[hopelessgayartist]

heal my good homies

[hopelessgayartist]

No one gets Lady Macbeth like afab trans people do.

[hopelessgayartist]

Transness And Shakespeare

So I’ve been thinking a lot about theater recently. Particularly ways that trans performers and trans readings can enhance rather than distract from a play or musical.

This is something that’s relevant to me personally because I used to do a lot of shows back in high school. I was actually in a performing program that would have morning classes before each schoolday. But I kinda lost touch with that side of me when I went off to college, and now that I’ve realized I’m trans, I’ve been thinking a lot about the relationship between my gender and my involvement in theater.

Back in my morning program, we used to do a lottt of Shakespeare, and there certain roles that were available to me then that I had a lot of strong, albeit conflicted feelings about. So I want to talk about Twelfth Night and Macbeth in particular and trans takes on the characters that have been kinda spinning around in my subconscious for close to a decade now and should probably come out (no pun intended).

Really Viola Or Really Cesario? (Twelfth Night)

So I’ve always had mixed feelings about Viola, the protagonist of Twelfth Night.

On the one hand, I was always at the edge of my seat during the scenes where she was disguised as a man named Cesario. To live as a man was thrilling to me, and so I loved any opportunity to play this character. Especially since actual male roles were closed off from me, even in high school. My teacher would always tell me it wasn’t “professional” for me to play a dude. Nevermind that none of this was professional but whatever.

On the other hand, Twelfth Night spends a lot of time emphasizing how Viola is ~really~ a heterosexual woman, and that always made me feel uneasy and confused. For instance, when Viola pines for Duke Orsino and wishes he could see her as a woman, I’d just think, “Viola, why can’t you just be a gay man? There, problem solved.” At the end of the play, when order is restored as Viola sheds her disguise and becomes the duke’s wife, I was always disappointed. Why go back to what felt to me like a mundane, tedious existence? Why celebrate that? It felt forced, like a betrayal almost. Like Viola’s queerness was somehow a threat to society that had to be resolved neatly. Like maleness was just an outfit you could just put away at the end of the day.

Some would say that there is a trans-masculine element to Viola. And my younger self would’ve agreed to this. Certainly I felt a connection to the character that was uniquely trans-masculine. But a trans guy like me could never play Viola convincingly. Sure, I’d be great as Cesario, but any time that the real Viola peeks through in the script, I’d only be able to read that half-heartedly. I wouldn’t be able to say as Viola that I AM really a woman, not the way an actress could. So, no, I’m not sure that part is for someone like me.

But I know who would be excellent for that role. Trans women, of course! Who else would know better the struggle of being forced into a male role when all you want is for people to see you as a woman? Who else could get that deep longing for the duke not just to fall in love with the lead but specifically to fall in love with Viola, not Cesario? And who else could actually make that ending satisfying and empowering to watch, rather than oppressive? A trans female take on Viola could bring so much to the role.

Who Wields The Dagger? (Macbeth)

Even back in high school, I was incredibly aware of Lady Macbeth’s transness. I actually wrote an essay about it in my English class. Which was, you know, a totally cis interest that had nothing to do with my own gender identity or anything.

Lady Macbeth is pretty up-front about her interest in maleness. In one of her first monologues, she prays that the evil spirits “unsex” her, which means she wants her femaleness removed (back then, the only sex was the female sex because the male sex was normal). She goes into longwinded and disturbing descriptions about doing violent things to her breasts or to breastfeeding children.

But more than that, her whole character arc revolves around using her husband as a proxy for herself. Lady Macbeth is wayyyyy more interested in killing Duncan and taking the throne than Macbeth is. Throughout the play, Macbeth is deeply reluctant about the atrocities he commits, and usually Lady Macbeth is the one urging him into doing it. Even in the scene before Duncan’s murder, Macbeth’s “Is This A Dagger Which I See Before Me” monologue makes it seem as if he is being led by the dagger rather than actively ascending the stairs himself.

Plus, there’s the ways that Lady Macbeth repeatedly calls Macbeth feminine. For instance, referring to his nature as “full o’ the’ milk of human kindness” where previously she had equated breastmilk and femaleness with kindness.

So in a lot of ways, Lady Macbeth seems to be living out her male power fantasies through someone who isn’t really interested in that at all. Which is why I think Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would be much happier if they swapped places with each other. Maybe Lady Macbeth wouldn’t be suggesting murder so quickly if she was the one actually doing it anyway. Just a thought.

Of course, I think some of this trans coding is deliberate on Shakespeare’s part. I think that the transness of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth was probably meant as a way to quickly code them as evil to the audience. But they’re still iconic characters so I’m gonna claim them for our community anyway.

—

So mostly this post was just a lot of nerding out, but I hope it was enjoyable. Also, I haven’t read through these plays in years, so if there are any historians or literary experts out there reading this, please don’t kill me. And I’m interested in reading other people’s thoughts about these plays or about theater and gender in general.

[hopelessgayartist]

This was wildly fun to write.

[hopelessgayartist]

moulin gay

[hopelessgayartist]

People, who are not me, are going to watch Hadestown with the original cast today and I'm not even a little bit fucking mad about it

[hopelessgayartist]

I made a thing

[hopelessgayartist]

I LOVE THIS SONG

YES FLORENCE

QUEEN

(when i was in first grade i had a 'boyfriend' who made me a custom CD with this on it)

This song is so Persephone-coded

[hopelessgayartist]

eva velma???? eva velma???? so here for this

"oh thank god the gays are here"

[hopelessgayartist]

so true

I am obsessed with hadestown and it might be because I love Eurydice’s part (Eva is a queen)

[hopelessgayartist]

Why are people so mean about reeve as orpheus... I love the og broadway cast for hadestown so much. They own my heart and I am so glad there is a high chance that we're getting proshot with them. I know people love hating on stuff and everyone will have their favorite but I swear the amount of hate I saw on Reeve in the role since I got into hadestown and the way people talk about his performance makes me so sad..

[hopelessgayartist]

sorry idk why it got so blurry lmao but i had a thought and had to make this

(the text in the middle says "playing morally ambiguous lesbian-coded characters in a comphet relationship" for those who can't read it)

[hopelessgayartist]

Ok so yesterday I was googling something about Jeff Buckley (genuinely don't remember why) and like ????

That's literally just Reeve Carney!? What?!?

This is so funny

What on earth

I guess this is why they cast him in that biopic that got canceled a few years ago 😭

[hopelessgayartist]

Rip Gavorche and Eponine. You guys would have loved cps.

[hopelessgayartist]

THATS WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING

disguise

[hopelessgayartist]

power couple (if power couples were known to consist of two dumbasses)