#tldr: the nonbinary representation in this musical was flawed but earnest

[sarahsupastar]

Ooh please tell us about the play (?) you saw with a nonbinary character?

oh yeah, sure!

It was the jukebox musical & Juliet, which I got tickets to as a part of my Broadway in Boston membership. I should say up front that overall I thought the show was pretty mediocre, but it was still a fun time, and the reasons I found it underwhelming are a matter of taste, so your mileage may vary.

The conceit of the play is that Shakespeare has just finished writing Romeo & Juliet, but his wife Anne doesn't like the ending, so she starts rewriting it so that Juliet lives and the story continues from there. One of the first things Anne changes is she writes in some friends for Juliet, including May, who is nonbinary.

To spare everyone else's dash, my full, rambling thoughts are under the cut:

Things The Show Did Right:

Based on the fandom wiki page, it looks like May has consistently been played by nonbinary/trans actors, which is pretty spectacular and honestly kind of outweighs everything else

All the other main/supporting characters accept May for who they are; their identity is never a source of interpersonal conflict

May is an important supporting character with a whole sub-plot and multiple songs dedicated to their arc

May's costumes are pretty great

Everything about the show leads me to believe that this character is a genuine, good-faith effort to portray nonbinary experiences and provide good, positive representation

Things The Show Could've Done Better:

If you'll allow me to rant for a minute, I have a few nit-pick-y complaints about things that made me feel very "he a little confused, but he got the spirit"

...

When Anne announces that she's adding a friend for Juliet named May and May walks out on stage, Shakespeare looks at them and asks "isn't that typically a girl's name?", which sets Anne off on a sassy little soapbox rant about how Shakespeare has no room to judge because tons of his plays have crossdressing and anyway how May identifies isn't anybody's business but their own! That speech got a big cheer from the audience (which is good! I'm thrilled to have been in a room full of strangers who'll cheer for that), but it had me rolling my eyes for a number of reasons.

Anne didn't start by saying May is nonbinary, she just just hopped up on her soapbox as if that was information Shakespeare already knew and he hadn't accepted it.

Shakespeare wasn't questioning May's identity, he was questioning Anne's choice of name for them. Yes, he's making gendered assumptions, but he's not questioning May being nonbinary, he's questioning them being named May.

"How someone identifies isn't anyone's business but their own" doesn't apply to fictional characters! In the context of the show, May is a character that Anne just made up, which means their identity isn't a matter of inherent truth, it's a choice that Anne is making for them. Saying "May's identity is May's business" is like saying "Catwoman's costume is Catwoman's business" as if the comic book writers didn't decide on that costume for her.

The whole exchange just felt clumsy, like the writers really wanted to include that sassy little identity-affirming speech, but they didn't want to have one of their main characters say something actually invalidating, so the speech came across like an illogical overreaction whose sole purpose was to get a cheer from the audience.

...

I know the writers were limited in their song options, since this is a jukebox musical and it's only pulling from songs written by a single guy. But the songs they chose for May's arc are confusingly incongruous and don't always seem to actually align with the idea of May being nonbinary.

In Act 1, there's a scene where May's looking for the bathroom at a club, and the bathroom attendant is really snooty and micro-aggression-y about whether they belong in the women's room or the men's room. This leads to May singing Britney Spears's "I'm Not A Girl, Not Yet A Woman", which just... doesn't make sense to me.

When Britney sang it, that song was about being a particular age; when May sang it, the song was treated as if it was about being a particular gender. Except it's still just talking about one gender, and it's really unclear to me what it's supposed to be conveying about May's feelings on the topic. While they were singing, it seemed like maybe the point was "society's never going to see me as a girl; maybe someday they'll see me as a woman"? That would make sense for an amab enby whose gender was fluid or who wanted to be seen as something other than a boy, I guess. But May never directly talks about how they see themself or how they want to be seen, so this is left entirely up to the audience's interpretation.

And then when the song ends, Juliet comforts May by saying, "Just so you know, I've never seen you as a girl. Or a boy. Only as my friend." Which...

Now I'm back to not understanding how I'm supposed to interpret that song, since the loving sentiment being expressed by Juliet seems to be in direct opposition to the lyrics longing for womanhood.

This line from Juliet felt very similar to statements like "I don't see race" or "I don't think of you as disabled". These sentiments are kind, and they come from a place of love. But they're flawed, because things like gender/sexuality/race/disability/etc are important aspects of a person's identity and experiences, and if you're not seeing those aspects you're not seeing the whole person. (I don't think Juliet is actually saying she doesn't see May's gender, but once again the writing feels clumsy in a way that undercuts the intended impact for me.)

Then, in Act 2, a boy kisses May (after May asks him "how do you know you don't want to kiss anyone else if you've never tried it?", which, as an aroace, may I just say: 🤮) and then he sings Katy Perry's "I Kissed A Girl".

So... May is a girl now??? He and May are close at this point, so he's definitely not just confused about their identity. And when May joins in the song, the lyrics are changed so they're singing "I kissed a boy", which means the writers are willing to change the lyrics, so it's an active choice to have the boy calling May a girl in this song.

The writers were clearly choosing for lyrics that specifically mention gender when picking songs for May, but those lyrics are all very much referring to the gender binary, so they feel confusing when applied to a nonbinary character.

Again, the primary feeling this left me with was

...

Ok, I've complained enough. Please don't let my criticisms put you off if this show sounds like your jam. There are just little details that got under my skin, and I can't consume media without critiquing it.

In an effort to end on a positive note, I'll wrap this up by saying that this musical's version of "Baby One More Time" is gorgeous.