If you’re looking for a one-person piece that grapples with the legacy of women writers and the artifice of gender… consider this sharp short by Wu Zao. In A Reflection in Disguise, a writer grapples with her inner idealized artistic self and the boxes society has placed her into. She poses before a portrait of herself cross-dressed as a male scholar and sings to the portrait about her frustrations as a woman of talent. Can she ever truly reconcile the two selves and win the acclaim she deserves? Through lush Chinese poetry, this monologue yields searing insight into the artifice of gender and the psyche of women in literature in the 19th Century.
If you’re looking for a play that leverages the existentialism of Beckett but ratchets up the stakes through erotic powerplay… you’ll love Maria Irene Fornés’ Tango Palace. Isidore, a genderfluid bon vivant, has trapped their lover, the earnest and noble Leopold, in a room. The space becomes the pair’s entire universe and the stage on which they dance, dissect, and detonate their desires. The dangerous co-dependence of their erotic relationship spills over as they tango, driving them towards death in this searing and sensual examination of masculinity and destructive desire.
Hosted by Gagarin and Kalina Ko.
