REVIEW: Mannequim @ Brighton Fringe – Actors

Brighton Fringe’s Mannequim is billed as a”ploem” – a mashup of a play and a poem, and it truly is, as much of its speech is cleverly  in rhyming couplets.

What Ted Gooda and Lexy Medwell have created is the dialogue between lifelong friends Alex and Michaela – Alex a boy desperately wanting to be a girl when we first encounter them; and Michaela – Micky for short -an unhappy tomboy of a girl desperately wanting to be male.

From age 5 to mid-50’s we keep encountering them as they grow towards the gender they really want to have. It’s a fertile concept, and the performers do it justice, bringing out the humour of the situations they face, which sometimes are pretty grim.

As a boy Alex collects rubbers – erasers – well as they tell us: “it’s the 70’s.” They keep their pants on in the bath “to hide my willy.” Obsessed with their sister’s swimming costume, Alex the young boy puts it on and parades in front of his mother and her visiting friends. “It hugs my body, transitioning me – I am a girl,” Alex says.

Meanwhile Micky has acquired 3 gerbils which were supposed to be all males, but soon turn out to be prodigiously fertile and 3 become 33. Like many of the images and allusions in this play, it’s another symbol of gender confusion.

And Alex has a thing about sending Valentine’s cards, and when the girl she fancies finds out who sent the card- at age 11 – she’s not capable of handling it, asking us “it was the first time I wanted to kiss a girl; does that make me a boy?”

Alex doesn’t like playing football and Micky desperately wants to play it, but the boys won’t let her. More symbols. They drift apart and reunite.

They define growing up as the nuisance of having to decide what to wear every day – and indeed clothes become another indicator of existing versus desired gender.

They both marry partners and regret it as a form of co-existence. Caterpillars are grown in a pot – “ little pupa, soon to be super” says the rhyming dialogue of Alex. And probably her best rhyming tongue twister: “what else could be better for a metamorphosing metaphor?” Clever stuff.

And life moves on, Micky posing: “the question is to be or not to be a woman. I’d sooner not wear my womb on my head.” They both agree they shouldn’t tick the box on forms that asks their gender – a small victory. Alex has started cross-dressing part-time, telling us: “my life has split into two bits. I’m gender fluid in a blender.” But her wife tells her it isn’t what the wife signed up for. So divorce is on the cards.

But aged 52 Alex is on HRT – a second chance at puberty – she says.

Ted Gooda, in pullover and dungarees, plays the butch woman with determination and grim humour. Lexy Medwell presents the poetry of her rhyming and equally has a determination to get the life she wants. They are both believable and heartwarming performances.

Will Gooda adds perspective as a selection of male teachers, doctors and others, for the two protagonists to score points off.

Mannequim was at The Actors but you can catch it again at The Brunswick on June 1. Tickets at brightonfringe.org