“I spent a long time trying to look like a girl.
I spent a long time feeling awkward.”
By Eric George Tauber
SAN DIEGO — Virtually every son wants to be “just like dad” and every dad wants his son to be “a chip off the old block.” But what if your “mini-me” is your daughter? And what if your dad is a f*ed up Vietnam vet, poisoned by Agent Orange?
Like many soldiers, Julius didn’t like to talk about the war. He kept a small photo album, but it disappeared when his daughter asked questions. Now, decades later, his body is racked with cancer and his mind is gone. And as anyone who’s been through it knows, it’s not just the cancer patient who suffers.
But this is the story of Nut, Julius’ grown daughter as she desperately tries to connect with her father in his last days. Nut narrates through the fourth wall as she takes us on her journey, a road with twists and turns through memory, fantasy and reality. In her fantasies, Nut is with her father in Vietnam, a fellow combat soldier … one of the guys. When exposed to Agent Orange, it flutters down as orange feathers, a device that is effectively eerie.
Playwright Basil Kreimendahl started out writing a play about Agent Orange and it developed into a play about the nature of masculinity. Enter Director Will Davis –who happens to be transgender, born female. Coming from a dance background, Davis sees the world through that lens, finding physical ways to communicate through the silences.
Rae K. Henderson possesses real gravitas as Nut. Tall and lean, she’s pretty, yet with a masculine edge. We follow her on her journey even as she takes us through some very dark and scary places.
Dana Case broke my heart as France, Nut’s mom. She was painfully honest as the stressed out caregiver. She’s doing all that she can, but it’s all just too much.
Steve Froehlich is fun to watch as Ol’ Boy, a fellow soldier in Nut’s ‘Nam fantasies. Boisterously wild, he’s the sort of man you wouldn’t want to marry your daughter. But you would want him to have your back under fire.
Moxie Theatre has never been afraid to challenge our perceptions of one another as men and women. While Nut never undergoes the painful surgeries to become male, a butch haircut and rugged dress give her that appearance, leaving us to examine how we feel about that.
From a very early age, gender defines how we dress and what toys we’re given. When learning Hebrew, I was frustrated by the fact that verbs have different tenses for males and females even to ask “How are you?” (Ma shlomchah, Adon? -male; Ma shlomech, Geveret? –female) And I’ve gotten some funny looks at my mistakes.
The media is buzzing with transgender issues, but their battle is far from over. Challenging the binary paradigm that we’ve always known is bound to bring some pushback and it has.
If you’re not afraid of dark places and provocative questions, check out Orange Julius playing at Moxie Theatre through Oct 18.
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Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com