“ZE”: Queer As F*ck!

Ivy, 14^th February

This is Ren Lunicke’s Hirstory, and as such, can’t really be judged as good or bad, right or wrong – we are privileged to see it performed in zir energetic words and actions.  Here are some reason to see the show:

·         If you like concentrated celebrations of genderqueerness

·         If you like laughing along with genderqueer people too!

·         If you want only a gentle, but existent, level of audience participation in your Fringe choice

·         If you are sick of people you try to explain genderqueerness to acting like you just made it up to annoy them – this show is a good educational tool and might do well for various community and institutional groups, especially those ones who think they don’t need it.

Here are some things that will happen:

·         Without warning, childhood sexual abuse is briefly mentioned and not dealt with much after, which may be a bit sudden and shocking for some.

·         Other aspects of zir life as a developing genderqueer person are actually very sadbecause of the world ze lives in – this balances with the enthusiasm and special brand of dildo-hilarity, giving the show the weight of a real live experience, but the depth of the heartbreak in some parts of zir life are hard to recover from.

·         In the flurry of listing and accepting all the possible labels and anti-labelling labels a few may have been used in a slightly off way, but we are shown that it is up to the individual how they identify, and everyone else can go jump.

·         In the flurry of welcoming every possibility of everything, it’s easy to forget that there are many ‘privileges’ the performer has (such as being able to show off zir able-bodied-ness and allude to a conventional notion of ‘hotness’) that the people in the audience encouraged to identify, may not.  The performance can even come off as a bit conventional in all its purported radicalness… But that depends who’s watching!

·         The value of such performances is apparent even as, in the light of the following day this review is being written, a conversation involving jokes of a homophobic nature (in the sense that possible sexual activities of gay people are being canned as universally, objectively unappealing) is taking place in our central city within earshot.  Long live Fringe, we need you, all of you!

Even though ze didn’t cry rainbows like the poster, bottom line is, this is entertaining as f*ck!