‘I don’t want to suck on the end of a dildo, OK?!’ Jesus, lady, we get the message, but what would you do if your hot, spunky boyfriend suddenly wanted to swap his cock for a pussy? How would your dick – accustomed to shagging his butt – feel pumping his new, sopping, wet snatch? No wonder hardcore, anally retentive dyke Alice can’t deal with her long-term girlfriend revealing she wants to be a man!
Sharp, touching and viciously funny, Rotterdam remixes the fearlessly queer attitude of Russell T Davies’ Cucumber and Banana shows into way-overdue, gender-fluid farce. Who needs the sappy earnestness of Transamerica and other, earnestly plodding tripe? Me, I’ve been screaming out for frenzied, drug-fucked transsexual irreverence for years, for drama truly reflecting the way we live!
It’s about time. Finally, with gender-neutral toilet issues convulsing even the most redneck states of the USA, and fully-transitioned barristers in the UK, transsexuality’s a media sensation. But viewed more cynically, it’s also lucrative as fuck – branding CEOs worldwide must be wanking themselves raw at vast, new, gender-blender marketing opportunities!
However, back to Rotterdam, arguably a nowhere, transient dump for nowhere, transient people. No wonder playwright Jon Britain’s stuck early 20s, lesbian shipping agent Alice there – she’s as emotionally constipated as Theresa May slamming mega-doses of Xanax! Still sexually closeted, she’s timidly planning to out herself to her parents by email, when partner Fiona suddenly drops a bombshell – she’s becoming a man!
Screw Bourgeois and Maurice – this unintentional double act, ultra-uptight Alice and breezy, accept-me, future-dick-included Fiona – are the Patsy and Edina of absolutely fabulous, gender variance! Not that they know it – they’re both fantastically blind to each other’s needs, Fiona completely swamped by the fierce, testosterone rush of her imminent masculinity!
Still, all transitions are as much steep learning curve as previous, blanket denial, and Rotterdam’s a beautifully layered dissection of sexual ambiguity. Alice, played with stunningly icy, middle-class restraint by Alice McCarthy, thaws from pure disgust at Fiona’s plans to grudging empathy. Not unassisted, though – a brief fling with hot office junior Lelani (Jessica Clark) opens her mind, heart and body with reluctant sex and drugs. But glib, blasé and arrogant, Lelani’s hugely unappealing, assuming every female’s born screaming, bloody and shit-smeared into the world aching for cunt, GHB and double-ended dildos!
Gee – ever heard of different strokes for less full-on folks, madam? Obviously not – arrogance never looks beyond its own asshole – but writer Jon Brittain springs multiple, sexual strokes with the virtuosity of a master-class, transsexual hooker.
Christ, Fiona even emotionally back-stabbed her own brother – blokey non-entity Josh (Ed Eales-White)- luring an eager, confused Alice from his clueless cock. ‘When do we ever know who we’re attracted to?’ Alice asks Josh, who answers, ‘Whoever we think about when we masturbate’.
That’s the problem – Alice, heartbreakingly, tells Fiona, now called Adrian, ‘I’m gay – I don’t want to get used to you being him’. Why should she? Then – with appalling presumption – Fiona/Adrian tells Alice that of course, Alice has never been gay, because Fiona’s always been an undiagnosed man!
Certainly, she convinces here – all confrontational, space-devouring body language, actress Anna Martine’s Fiona prowls the stage with the raw, predatory fire of K.D. Lang. Ferociously concerned with passing as a guy, despising any possibility of being mis-gendered, she brilliantly embodies the manic, sexually dictatorial tunnel-vision of early transition.
And sadly, that’s where Rotterdam sucks. Sure, Alice’s fling with Lelani makes Fiona savagely question her transsexuality, but the final scene’s Alice deciding to accept Fiona as Adrian. WTF? If I wanted dumb, binary-sex love, I’d watch Neighbours, but Rotterdam could have delivered so much more!
Rotterdam @ Trafalgar Studios to 27th August. 0844-871-7632.
