By Brittaney Mann
Not all comedic gestures withstand changing generations and the realizations that some things, especially those involving dominant groups against minority groups, are not actually comedy. For so long privileged people can laugh at one thing and soon realize a specific word or action is placing someone in a box so small that they have no room to breathe to even defend themselves; or people simply don’t want to listen.
It is difficult to imagine a play with some dated jokes would have a place in the world today, especially in realms that celebrate women, BIPOC lives, gender diversity, different body types, and really any constraint of Western society that ostracizes those who diverge from the long held social norm of being a straight white cisgender man. It happened though.
“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” from Big Con Productions and The Grey Area at Southwark Playhouse Borough takes a story that might fall flat for most audiences if it were performed without casting that broke the boundaries of gender, race, and body size to name a few things it accomplished. The producers of this play seemed to want to set out to take this silly satire with catchy songs and make it palatable to today’s audiences.
I think they succeeded in making this play unoffensive to modern and accepting audiences. The inclusion of transgender or gender non-conforming actors and the act of not caring about gender in casting lightened the mood of the play and allowed me to laugh at some jokes I would normally dislike. I don’t laugh at people goggling at boobs or objectifying women, but I found myself chuckling at some of these instances because to me it felt like it was making fun of the depiction of men acting this way rather than staring at boobs being the joke. To me it felt like the performance of the play was making fun of the play itself and the time it was written in when certain jokes would have been funny to many without objection.
I loved Allie Daniel as Rosemary, she is a very talented singer and actress. Whenever her character appeared on stage, I felt so drawn in and able to feel the emotions of her character, all the sadness and frustration about Finch. Transgender women need so much love in this world that seeks to harm them, and I am so happy to see her own that role.
The only spot I wish could have been improved regards the boundaries maybe between character and actor. I wish I knew the gender identities of the actors sooner, but I guess that is something that I could have looked up. I just find that part important so people know that the actors are gender diverse themselves and not just gender bending a play.
As a transgender and non-binary person, I thought this play was amazing. The bare minimum interactions between the characters is really what transgender people ask for, just to be seen as how they introduce themselves in terms of pronouns. I always get emotional consuming content where transgender people can just exist in a world without a looming threat over their heads. Performances like these remind me of the happiness I feel when I live as I know I should be living, but they also remind me of how far we have to go as a society in accepting transgender people — especially after the arduous early months of 2023 and the many hateful laws introduced and passed.
Theatre in London U of A 