REVIEW: Putting the Trans Female Experience On Stage, OVERFLOW Is An Enlightening and Entertaining Experience

Wednesday 14th September 2022, Eternity Playhouse Darlinghurst

Travis Alabanza's (playwright) OVERFLOW is a brilliantly funny and powerfully informing new theatre work that puts the Trans experience in the spotlight. Under Dino Dimitriadis' direction, this solo work delivered by performer Janet Anderson, opens the understanding that the ladies' loos, particularly in places like nightclubs and bars, have been so much more than just a spot to spend a penny.

In a compact representation of a two-stall lavatory, also designed by Dimitriadis, a young trans woman, Rosie, is hiding out from aggressive people, who we initially assume to be men wanting to attack her, banging on the door. This isn't a new experience for the 20'something redhead in platform boots, mini skirt, corset, and puffer jacket but this time we are her audience for her coping strategy of reciting a monologue of her own making, hoping the bullies outside get bored and go away by the time shes finished. It's through these monologues that the weight of Rosie's experiences hit home as she shares the varied memories of various public bathrooms and the shifting safety of the space, she, and other female identifying people, once viewed as a sanctuary from men.

Janet Anderson is fantastic as Rosie. She captures the English accent that reinforces that Rosie is not from London, moving to the big city to with a hope that there will be better acceptance and opportunity than where she grew up. Paired with Dimitriadis' direction and the design of the space in which Rosie is trapped in, Anderson presents a fabulous physicality that ensures that everything feels natural while fully utilizing the space so that she never dwells in one spot for too long or repeats her interactions with the space, reinforcing the complexities of her mind that are manifesting in her monologue. Her shifts between her own thoughts and her memories of conversations with others are brilliantly done, assisted by Benjamin Brockman's lighting design that moves the space from stark utilitarian to spotlighted reenactments and disco lit memories.

Alabanza's play is enlightening and thought provoking for those that have not personally experienced all the things Rosie has gone through but may have still shared encounters and solidarity with other people in ladies' lavatories over the years. While hopefully anyone going to see OVERFLOW is at least aware enough and supportive of the trans community, Alabanza's work reinforced the need for the friends and allies to do more than just support their friends when they are with them but also seek to call out prejudice that other people may have and that its not acceptable to say you're an ally if you sit idly by and don't stand up for those that may be discriminated against when they aren't watching you. As a cis woman, I can only hope that works like OVERFLOW helps raise awareness while also providing trans women a reinforcement that they are seen but, more importantly, I hope the work challenges other cis people to reevaluate how they support trans people, particularly when no one is watching, so that the ladies loos can return to a sanctuary for all female identifying people rather than being another prejudice filled battleground.

https://www.darlinghursttheatre.com/overflow

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