Last year in Dublin, I totally scandalized a
cute young gay man. It's a hazard of the business I'm in -
storytelling, representing social life and human experience on
stage in queer (and ordinary) ways.I've scandalized plenty of
different folks - and I can't always tell by looking at the
audience who'll be most surprised.Like this young gay guy, for
example.
See, some people like to think that they're
entitled to great big fabulous lives - lives with romance and
intrigue and glow-in-the-dark hot-pants - but not everyone is
entitled to those lives.Some young gay men in particular act like
they invented camp, like no one before them was ever cool, hip,
deviant and finding the meaning of life through sex - certainly
not, gasp, 40-something year-old
women.
See, here's the thing:I've been around a
while.I'm a middle-aged, queer, mother, fat-lady, femme-dyke.I'm an
invisible deviant because I'm gender-conforming, attractive,
educated, well-spoken.I'm not queer until I choose to reveal it and
then suddenly I'm on stage in a show like Dykeotomy,
telling stories about gender-bending, identity-blurring strap-on
sex and power-relationships.
So, poor boy, I freaked him out.I'm sure
he's not alone. I offered sympathy when he stammered, "Well, I've
just never heard... a woman... say such things... And so casually
too." What more could I offer but sympathy --
and a broader view of the queer world.
Actually, who knows what part of my presence
or content affected him so deeply.What I do on stage,
and what the audience sees are never entirely aligned.The viewer is
always in her or his own story and I'm speaking from my own.The
genius is in the confluence and contrast and contradiction among
our stories.People often feel that I'm telling stories about their
lives - that I must be just like them.Or, they marvel at how
different I am, and yet, my stories reveal an understanding of
their lives that seems uncanny.Occasionally, someone is angry with
me about a story, a point of view - as though somehow I am
the viewpoints I present on stage and I can be dismissed as
"other," held at arm's length - and fast, before anyone gets
hurt.
In a way, I am presenting myself on stage.
And yet, only certain facets of me are on display. I tell stories
about myself in order to tell stories about culture. Unlike
auto-biography, every story is about me, but I am not the subject.I
am a prism through which the audience can see parts of themselves
reflected - sometimes the brilliant shimmering parts, or the
shattered parts. Sometimes the parts that are still dirty, dull,
holding the promise of a barely perceptible shine.All of those ways
of being are in me too.Along with the parts that scandalize some
and affirm the very existence of
others.
And so I prepare with pleasure, to take the
stage in Liverpool, knowing that some will be thrilled, others will
want distance and still others will feel aroused - or scandalized -
maybe all at the same time.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Dykeotomy, Kimberly Dark
uses intimate, humorous, thought-provoking storytelling to explore
the modern foibles of gender identity and power relationships - in
everyday life and culture, and in sexual encounters.The show is a
one-night-only part of Homotopia on November 1 at
Unity Theatre.
Find out more about Kimberly's work at
www.kimberlydark.com
- and why The Advocate named her as one of six top LGBT activists
performing on college campuses in the U.S. this year.
