Kim Tatum dreams of playing Norma Desmond, Sunset Boulevard’s exquisite former star of silent films. Mariah Louca longs to perform as Dangerous Liaisons’ evil schemer Marquise de Merteuil. And for Reece Lyons, it’s the monstrous ambition of Lady Macbeth that makes her the ideal role. But, until attitudes within British theatre shift, it’s unlikely these talented performers will get to play their dream characters. Despite their skill, training and accolades, trans women just don’t seem to get cast in cisgender roles.
“I have never seen a trans woman on stage play a mother or a love interest,” Offie-award-winning Lyons says. “Why don’t we come to mind for that?” Lyons is sitting on a low couch in a light-streamed room across from Tatum and Louca. Frustrated with the constant obstacles they face in the industry, the three actors are calling for trans women to be put on an equal footing for cis roles.
Sigh.
One obvious answer is that you’re a bloke so casting will be influenced by that. But let us move on from such obvious prejudice. It’s already well established that Eddie Redmayne wouldn’t get that trans part these days. Because cis is not allowed to play trans, obvs. If them’s the rules then them’s the rules. But basic fairness would then insist that trans don’t get to play cis.
Either it’s all dress up and casting is entirely open to the vision of the director and everyone esle gets to shut the fuck up – or it isn’t. And if it ain’t then you’re screwed, right?
Bring it on. I’m not going to watch anyway. But I’ll enjoy hearing all the actresses who support ‘colour blind’ casting bleating about having their roles taken away.
The theatre is notorious for its deep-seated prejudice against people of gender, colour, and marginal sexual tastes. Fewer institutions reach its giddying heights of hate for anyone not a heterosexual white male.
Trans luvvies. Imagine the tantrums!
’Why don’t we come to mind for that?”’
Suspension of belief can only go so far…
In the event that they were to get the parts would these chaps have to shave twice on matinée days?
I was aware that many actresses had a few molars removed to enhance their looks. I think new career beckons for one of my sons – a cosmetic surgeon specialising in shaving the laryngeal prominence of the thyroid cartilage. One of the very few barriers to trans women looking like Cleopatra or Helen of Troy…
It’s not always been this way. Lassie was not actually, eh um, a lassie.
KJP: Lassie was not actually, eh um, a lassie.
Horrors. That’s like saying that Champion the Wonder Horse was in fact Weston super Mare.
Noooo, other way around. Lassie was a lassie, best way to have a dog that doesn’t piss on everything is to have a bitch instead.
“I have never seen a trans woman on stage play a mother or a love interest,” Offie-award-winning Lyons says. “Why don’t we come to mind for that?”
Some questions just sort of answer themselves, don’t they…
Why not – after all we’ve had African men and women playing English Kings, Queens, Lords and Ladies. Let’s go full diversity!
( This is a reciprocal arrangement, right?)
I made the mistake of looking at the Guardian article and, horrors, from the photo to me Reece Lyons looks convincing as a woman and attractive.
So I checked other images of it and, nah, sanity restored.
Started to watch the Disney Channel’s adaption of CJ Sansom’s ‘Shardlake’ last night. Gave up after thirty minutes of being asked to believe that Early Modern England was abundantly populated with Africans and Indians.
When Damian Lewis gets to play the lead in ‘Twelve Years a Slave’, I might believe that this is colour blind casting rather than propoganda……….
The photo in The Grauniad does present them convincingly as women. But then again, the members of Queen made a pretty good fist of playing women* in the video for “I Want To Break Free” so it’s probably not all that difficult.
* Freddie’s moustache sort of gave the game a way. 🙂
In the 1980s there was a model who was a tranny. I think it was called Tula – did Smirnoff posters as I recal ( bird waterskiing, holdung vidka kind of thing) . Looked the part, but never seen in close up.
They can play Widow Twankey.
But basic fairness would then insist that trans don’t get to play cis.
Since when has the Trans lobby given even a fig about ‘basic fairness’?
In truth I think much of the population is so turned off by their intolerance of dissent and their tantrums that many are moving towards the position where Hamas attitudes to transgender are probably the only declared Hamas policy that most would not actively oppose.
The failure to audition trans women for cis roles is a refusal to truly see them as women.
Yarp, people are just pretending to believe that you’re women. They’re acting.
Nobody who says “trans women are women” believes trans women are women. It’s just a lie people tell, like pretending to admire Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
And for Reece Lyons, it’s the monstrous ambition of Lady Macbeth that makes her the ideal role
Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.
Bravefart – some trannies in their early 20’s can pass for female in still photos with the right lighting and makeup, and as long as there’s no real women in the photo to compare.
The illusion is shattered when they move, or talk, or when they hit 30 and start looking like Willem Dafoe in drag. They age like a piece of raw chicken left outside in the sun.
Not sure if you’re familiar yet with the manmade horror that is the Pooner, but look at a recent photo of Ellen Page and you’ll understand. I wonder if she wants to be cast as Rocky.
“I have never seen a trans woman on stage play … a love interest,”
Possibly the difficulty of finding a male actor wants to snog a tranny. MP’s of the three main political parties, not so hard. Reportedly.
Steve
Nobody who says “trans women are women” believes trans women are women. It’s just a lie people tell, like pretending to admire Baroness Doreen Lawrence.
That sentence is spot on – Indeed it has me speculating you may be the former Telegraph columnist Peter Simple via some miracle of cloning or life-extending technology. That is exactly the kind of thing he would have said re: Doreen Lawrence…
VP – that is very kind of you to say, my wife does agree that I’m simple.
But, until attitudes within British theatre shift,
Three hearty cheers then for that steadfast bastion of conservatism which is the British theatre. Probably explains why so many consequentially far-right luvvies feature prominently in the honours lists.
At the bottom of the article there are links to previous Graun articles on the same subject.
Two adjoining headlines:
UK theatres promise to only cast trans actors in trans roles
and
Cast more transgender actors in non-trans roles, union urges
Shameless grift.
There’s no such thing as cis – ergo, no such thing as cis gender roles. Men used to play female roles in Shakespeare’s time. They still do in panto, so there’s an opportunity there.
And of course this is a good opportinioty to whel out this old classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_u1OTgD14A
I greatly enjoyed David Suchet as Lady Bracknell in Wilde’s, The Importance of Being Earnest. I don’t recall who played the “bag”.
>And for Reece Lyons, it’s the monstrous ambition of Lady Macbeth that makes her the ideal role.
Weren’t female actors in Shakespeare’s time largely ‘trangender’ (ie, dudes in dresses)?
Sounds like Reece is 4 centuries too late to be the first.
>The failure to audition trans women for cis roles is a refusal to truly see them as women.
Or maybe you’re not just that good of an actor? Because if you were you’d pass.
Btw, Steve Kirsch has done the maths, and basically, vaccines are the reason there’s so many weirdos these days:
https://kirschsubstack.com/p/survey-indicates-sexual-orientation
We’re living in a weird world where every conspiracy theory seems to be coming true, all at once. Sir Keir Starmer to tear off his human mask and devour a live guinea pig when?
It was boys playing female parts in Shakespeare’s time, not men.
They’re complaining about not being cast in “cisgender roles” roles. Well, duh! You’re not cis-gender. If you aspire to be cast in *female* roles, that would be different. I’ve seen a bloke do a very good Lady Bracknell, and Glenda Jackson did a great King Lear.
Aggers, that was transvestism not transgenderism. It was (young) blokes in frocks, not ladies with cocks.
I’m afraid that I’ll never be disabused of the notion that pre-op “trans women” are blokes in dresses and post-op “trans women” are castrated blokes in dresses.
If they’ve got a “Y” chromosome hanging-around somewhere, they’re blokes!
Oh the shock, BJ. I didn’t realise there was another old fogy like me around!!