"Gardenia" Theatre Analysis

[DJM]

It's an expensive practice being a thespian, and thus I don't get to do this as often as I'd like. I went to see a beautiful play last November called Gardenia, an LGBT-inspired tale of burlesque and the finalities in life. Here's an analysis of it that I wrote (warning: it's LONG).

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-Gardenia, at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, Oct. 10, 1 hour 45 minutes (no interval)-

Gender-transcendent rather than transgendered, Gardenia is the lovechild of the transitory male-to-female screenwriter-cum-performer Vanessa van Durme, theatre director Frank van Laecke and the choreographer Alain Patel, founder of the new-wave dance company Les Ballets C de la B, one of the most influential dance-theatre companies in the world, who produced the piece. Performed over two nights as a part the Dublin Theatre Festival in the Gaiety Theatre, it is the show’s one hundred and forty second show, marking over two years of the production’s evolution in both development and performance in its tour across Europe. Inspired by and derived from the documentary Yo soy asi by Sonia Herman Dolz, it is a muted take on the colourful stereotypes of transvestism and a bittersweet reflection on gender roles as well as gender identity. Like the aforementioned film, the storyline follows the petering out of a thirty year-old drag cabaret show, manned (pun unintended) by a small group of men of mostly alternative sexual identities between the ages of fifty and eighty, as well as a mysterious male dancer who appears to be have been taken under their wing. Their show, of course, is named Gardenia, and it is the show’s final performance before it comes to a close. With only this information to work with, what we the audience see is arguable: either its final performance, an abstract mish-mash of its accumulated and emotionally polarised memories spanning its long life, or an interspersing of both in the unfolding of the story.

The play opens with a prologue of sorts, scored by a resounding hum of low electronic noises; the stage is set symmetrically and minimally with a set of chairs, each accompanied by a member of the drag troupe dressed in in dapper, but dusty suits. A harsh, contrasting light encircles them, their shadows zooming up the dipping stage. “Madame” (Van Durme), the unspoken leader of the clan, steps fully forward to a microphone, gazes wistfully into the audience, and begins a deadpan but haunting rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The sound is distorted through the mic, and her voice’s pitch is brought down, causing somewhat menacingly for the vocal to sound like that of a man. Stopping mid-song, she beckons to the audience, telling them of the demise of their beloved Gardenia, and asks us to stand and give a minute of silence. We solemnly do so, and now the noises have faded out, leaving the auditorium hushed entirely. The flanked “girls” resume a military-like stance, though they are without uniform. Following this moment of reflection, one by one, they are called by Van Durme and introduced to us, and even with names such as “Lily Fuck-Me Silly” grandly declared across the room, the militant undertone continues. The crude chronicling of the various exploits of these people is regaled to us, our hilarity starkly positioned below their funereal, almost austere expressions. Once fully assembled at the stage’s forefront, they retreat single-file to strip themselves of themselves and don their transvestite alter-egos in front of us, shedding their clothes and applying their make-up dutifully and wordlessly. It is from here that the play curls open (much like the tongue-like red carpet that goes on to split the stage) both into full bloom, and decay. The initial breaking of the fourth wall given by “Madame” is closed up again, as we are shown a series of extended scenes that seem to be memorable moments from across the history of Gardenia. Though there are often monologues seemingly addressed to the audience, separate from the narrative of the scene, these often appear to be rather odes of the characters’ to the characters themselves, internal bouts of reflection and even existential crises that are vocalised. The girls each in their own way give testament to their collective tragi-comedic plight through lip-syncing, blunt accounts, or dance. We see the parting of ways of lovers, the sending off of old grudges, and the musings on dreams both fulfilled and unfulfilled. The girls bid a sorrowful farewell to their joyfully remembered Gardenia, each taking their last breath of their time in the limelight. Upon gathering up their memories, they swell together in one final lip-sync of the song that Madame preceded their story with, that which became an anthem of sorts for the gay community made famous by the gay icon Judy Garland, before they and Gardenia are swallowed up by the finishing blackout. By then, the stage has transformed with only the simplest of additions and variations of light, having become a white pantheon for the drag queens.

The stage at first is set as just that: a stage - at first unadorned save for the sparse layout of chairs. Dipping down into the audience, it is lit by large standing lights that flank the wings, and simple spots from above during the interval-like monologues of “Madame” as well as the other characters less frequently. The light changes back and forth between cold and warm dramatically according to the emotions conveyed in the scene. The wall at the back is lit especially to change colour, beginning a plain white and building up to a brilliant red, and this somehow gives (at least in this venue) the illusion that the size of the stage changes. As the play goes on, a tall scaffolding is wheeled out onto the stage, accompanied by an elongated table designed to resemble a row of make-up mirrors, along with a huge ball of the cast’s drag garb. For the finale, the white stage is bare except for a carnally red carpet, shining with light. The costumes themselves become part of the set, periodically strewn about the stage to emulate some sort of evolving changing room. The girls become a range of visual caricatures that are universally popular amid the transvestite community, such as Tina Turner and Marilyn Monroe, featuring a range of extravagant outfits. The costumes overall are effective, with a stark juxtaposition in the men’s dated suits to the almost blasé outfits that follow, and it all follows in front of us, as we see the old, wrinkled flesh slip from one to the other. Never “fishy” (as any drag queen will tell you), the makeup is caked on, and by the actors themselves no less, but skillfully and with precision - impressive given that it all occurs before one’s eyes in perfect tandem with the flow of the story. The music is played on a track throughout, and includes an eclectic range of tracks, from Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata to Alphaville’s Forever Young, as well as eerily edited recordings of the cast rehearsing the play and various indiscernable soundbites. Most of the dialogue is augmented by microphones situated around the stage, and at least three different languages are spoken. The production is quite simple, with the most intricate touches saved for the costumes, and the rest left quite open-ended when it comes to working with what they have. The changes in set and in costume are all done by the actors with no stage crew, intentionally exposed to the audience in a successful effort to invite a sense that we the audience are being given a candid, almost voyeur-like insight into this show within a show.

The actors themselves are characters within characters - they demonstrate combinations of their own true-life stories with that of the fictional person, and from there must branch out into the persona of their corresponding drag act. Among them, the majority are transsexuals (both fully transitioned and half-way, one of the latter whom we see topless with breasts and otherwise apparently male physical anatomy) and homosexuals, and they are all androgynous. Described in the program are these inspiring stories, one being the tale of van Durme herself, who decades ago gave up her true love theatre in pursuit of her sexual transition. Another is of Ricjard ‘Tootsie’ Dierick, who used theatre for years as an escape from his work as a paediatric nurse with countless children who died at his side of cancer. The performances are clearly fuelled by real-life experiences as well as experience in acting and theatre. Van Durme, the leading conspirator behind the birth of the play, leads the pack. Her voice is clear and commanding as she shoots the lines she herself wrote across the theatre. Indeed, it is van Durme who primarily speaks, moving between the role of narrator and active participant in the plot, but considering her principle role in the text’s composition, it never comes across as a vanity act. She emanates an onstage presence that demands the audience’s attention from the get-go. Her character of Madame shares the role of mother and father to the rest of them, though in her fifties is far from being the most senior of them. She is fabulous and sarcastic, but is neither overly proud nor cynical, and deeply grounded in her art and work. Her sense of loss at the announcing of Gardenia’s end in her opening speech provokes a deep sadness, a shared shattering of hope. She is shown to be a strong woman even before she speaks mere moments into the play through careful stage layout and strong body language, to see that image so soon broken and yet painfully retained for the sake of the play is fascinating to watch. The youngest is Hendrik Lebon, possibly in his late twenties, but exhibits a behaviour far more like that of a young teenager, filled with righteous anger and wrapped up in himself, prone to outburst and the subsequent licking of his deep wounds. Save for a tight pair of briefs, he is unclothed for almost the entire play, boasting an Adonis physique, which works tastefully to differ from his often child-like disposition. He is the most silent of the characters, but speaks volumes through the medium of masterful interpretative dance, influenced by contemporary and classical movement. An example of his technique is expressed in one of the play’s final scenes, in which we see him express his forlorn need for a real family (in particular, a Mother) expressed to one of his elders - the only naturally-born female player - in a intense, violent and awkward scene that remains even now open in my interpretation and branded in my memory. The age difference in Lebon to the others brings an energy that darts in and out out of their performances and perpetuates them rather than overtake them. The remainder of the cast represent a wide spectrum of the minorities within the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered community, but never come across as stereotypes, and the focus is greatly emphasised on this community’s so-called “Silent T” of transgendered issues. All of them appear immersed in this Universe, projecting the image of their characters’ audience onto us, and the illusion is never broken. They carry the play merrily, keeping their painted smiles despite themselves, like cherubim dancing through and around the epic darkness of a Michelangelo. We receive passing glimpses into their own insights of the life they have lived (both real and invented), but they seem to throw these at us in a tongue-and-cheek manner, as though there is some private in-joke surrounding the whole thing that only they can know.

Indeed, there is something simultaneously intimate and yet disconnected about the whole thing. There is a feeling that we the audience have been teasingly allowed to look into this world, but not nearly long enough to constitute an understanding of that world. We are presented with these seemingly unrelated vignettes, snapshots of the course of the fictional Gardenia’s run that somehow flow into one another seamlessly before us. The only context to these that we are given is in the prologue, that of the piece’s very premise: the demise of the fictional Gardenia that marks yet another good thing arriving at its end. Following the introduction to the settings and circumstance, there is little exposition, ending up mostly with raw yet decidedly abstract expression. Pulled suddenly into the most poignant of these characters’ memories without further (or sometimes even prior) knowledge of their nature or fate, the audience is left with a fractured view of these already very fractured individuals. On our part there is empathy, there is sympathy, even a relating to their sometimes unclear plight - but there is also bewilderment and confusion. The narrative at first makes to set out a clear-cut direction, but then dissolves into a dreamlike haze. Where it all ends is a fantastic mystery - mirroring the opening number, the “grand finale” is cut short with a sudden and total blackout. It ends without warning, having begun with only one: that the fictional Gardenia is coming to a close. Whilst making for interesting analysis and deliberation, it may also lead those who attend to lose track of both the character’s predicament and even their own - there were times when I found myself asking if it were strictly performance art I was watching rather than strictly theatre. The answer to this is obvious: it is of course a combination of the two, and indeed the blurring lines between the genres work to create a subtext that matches the main theme of blurring lines in gender, but it will leave many unsatisfied. In this way, the text both succeeds and fails in terms of being a stimulus for dynamic thought and consideration of theme; the observer will either become lost in their own dissection of the play, or give up on it all together, as seemed evident following the play’s end. There was both enthusiatic (albeit uncertain) discussion and ambivalent dismissal of the overall production despite general acceptance and appreciation of the aesthetics heard amidst the murmurs as the public shuffled out the doors of the theatre.

Following the performance, a talk by the actors, producers and the choreographers was given to those who would listen. I and about half of the critically divided audience remained behind, eager to do so, and struck up a conversation about what had just been witnessed with the man seated beside me, who I noticed had been moved to tears towards the end. Fitting in with the rhythm of the play, they came out one by one over the course of the session, each adding to the articulate and answers they would give. They were first interviewed by one of the organisers of the Dublin Theatre Festival, before being directed to the audience for inquiries. Between them all was a mutual physical comfort - there was a tangible sense that they had molded into a family as the play itself had grown over time, much like their fictional onstage counterparts. The audience were filled with questions concerning the history of the play’s lifespan, and we were told the ins and outs of the process, and the details of the back-stories of both the actors and their accompanying roles. Being the penultimate to be chosen, I tentatively asked a question of my own. My question to them was this: “It is understood that you the actors have incorporated the events of your own lives into the performance - do you find this process to be cathartic in the doing, and/or difficult?”. My answer was the briefest of all. The cast looked around at one another, thinking, and then smiling knowingly, emulating their prior state of performance, which provoked even more thought and questions within me. Van Durme herself turned to address me, and winked.

“No”.

Like her answer, her work Gardenia is an enigma, and an example of something than is more than the sum of its parts - even when its parts are numerous and expansive. A production based on the assimilation of the stories of many long-lived people within minorities, it often feels like a climactic ode to the collective experience of their lives. The result is a beautiful mess. The almost non-existent narrative is both the play’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The actors convince us of the dream, but the dream, to the non-analytical viewer, may remain a dream. It is only my own personal affinities with the theme and content of the text that I manage to be caught up in its glittery spectacle - however, it never enters the realm of pretension, nor ostentation. It is true to life and to the imagination of its creator, it is simply a truth to which not everyone will relate. There are indulgent moments of unadulterated campness, sometimes to the point of parodying the stereotype of the effeminate homosexual, but never distastefully, and not without the refrain of the characters’ bared souls and humanity. The play often harks back to former pioneers in LGBT-themed works of theatre that have clearly inspired its general aesthetic. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, RENT and Hedwig & The Angry Inch are all given due reverence in references both subtle and obvious, without Gardenia becoming a poor man’s version of any of these (nor, it must be said, remotely comparing to any of them). Despite having so much behind it, it is a decidedly small and self-contained work of art. Though melodramatic, it is never overly grandiose. The melancholy of the inevitable fate of the show saturates everything, and thus there are times of unease, but there remains an optimistic undertone driven by the honesty of the performances that make the journey somehow uplifting in the final crescendo. In the end, it is clear that Gardenia has in its still continuing journey transcended from being an interpretation of a previous text and indeed transcended the previous text itself to become one and the same as the fictional Gardenia so idealised and mourned by the characters that put it on. There is one small difference: the real Gardenia is not ending, yet.

-David Magee

A program is given freely to those who attend the performance providing detailed biographies of the producers and actors, with tickets selling for between twenty five and thirty five euro.