A playful exploration of gender performance

From the stage to everyday life, theater educator Jo Michael Rezes studies queer identity and the spectrum of gender performance — in its success and failure. Aided by a delightful introduction of campy charm, Rezes explores the freeing potential of playing with gender to better understand ourselves, each other and the spaces we inhabit.

(Music: "La Vie en Rose")

Cecily: Ah, well,
I feel rather frightened.

I'm so afraid he will look
just like everyone else.

(Algernon sniffs)

C: He does.

Algernon: You are my little
cousin Cecily, I'm sure.

C: You are under some grave mistake.

I'm not little.

In fact, I do believe I'm actually
more than usually tall for my age.

But I am your cousin Cecily,

and you, I see, are also here
helping Jo Michael Rezes

with their TEDx talk.

And you are my cousin Ernest,
my wicked cousin Ernest.

A: Oh! Well, I'm not really
wicked at all, cousin Cecily.

You mustn't think that I am wicked.

C: Well, I hope you haven't
been leading a double life,

pretending to be good
and being really wicked all the time.

That would be hypocrisy.

A: Well, of course,
I have been rather reckless.

C: I am glad to hear it.

A: But the world is good enough
for me, cousin Cecily.

C: Yes, but are you good enough for it?

A: I'm afraid I am not that.

That's why I want you to reform me.

C: Well, I'm afraid
I have no time this afternoon.

The TED talk and all.

(Laughter)

A: Well, would you mind
my reforming myself this afternoon?

C: Oh, that's rather quixotic of you,

but I think you should try.

A: Good. I feel better already.

C: You're looking a little worse.

A: Well, might I have that pink rose?

C: Why?

A: Because you are
like a pink rose, cousin Cecily.

C: Well, I don't think
it could be right for you

to talk to me like that.

A: You are the prettiest girl I ever saw.

C: But -- well, I -- I --

A: And, and ahem --

C: All good looks are a snare and --

A: Well, it's a snare
that every sensible man

would like to be caught in, and ...

Jo Michael Rezes: (Sighs)

I'm so sorry, I um --

I didn't finish rehearsing.

Um, well it's not because
I can't walk in heels,

I'm actually really good at that,

and I can prove it to you, too,
but I really am sorry.

Hold on.

Uh, um.

No matter.

No matter.

Right.

Right, introductions.

It's a TEDx talk. Right.

Hi, there! (Laughs) Um.

My name is Jo Michael Rezes,

and I'm a PhD student here
in theater and performance studies.

And I specialize in the study
of queer identities

as they maneuver and affect
the perceptions of time

in the performance of camp.

You know camp?

Sincerity in irony's clothing?

Making the kitsch feel like home?

No?

The Met Gala theme from 2019

that was thoroughly misunderstood
by over 95 percent of its attendees?

(Laughter)

No? OK, anyway.

I'm also an actor-director
and theater educator at large

in the greater Boston area.

Oh, and where are my manners?

The friends I brought with me today
are Algernon and Cecily

from Oscar Wilde's famously
well-known play,

"The Importance of Being Earnest."

And they'll be back, don't worry.

I've only scared them off a bit.

And let's be honest,

it wouldn't be a TEDx talk

without things wrapping up nicely
at the end, would it?

(Laughter)

You know, I hope
that wasn't too awful, though.

It was awkward, I know, to watch me fail.

To fail at what, exactly, though?

To play a man and a woman
at the same time?

I mean, to play a man and a woman
when I'm actually neither?

Why does it feel so awkward
when we see someone fail at gender,

and why do we care?

I mean, obviously, me screwing this up
was done on purpose.

Obviously, I had this all
perfectly memorized

and rehearsed for today, right?

Right?

(Laughter)

Well, I'm here today to talk about
gender performativity

and the ways in which I've used
my acting classroom

as a space to disrupt the finality
of gender performance,

to open up a looser space
for thinking about gender identity

through supportive failure,

generous mistakes
and honest communication.

We all, actors or otherwise,

can play with gender
in our everyday lives.

And I call this "gender rehearsativity."

Now, before all of the queer theorists
and women's studies degree holders

and Judith Butler fanatics in the audience

start to tear the half-and-half,
hyperbinary costume off of my body,

let me first explain where popular culture

has already begun to misunderstand
gender performativity,

before I move into
the rehearsativity I hold so dear.

Now, as an educator

and as a youngish
20-something-year-old trans person,

I'm constantly hearing from my
20-something-year-old students,

friends and colleagues

that gender is "over" --

that gender is so fluid and carefree

and that society, film and television
are so inclusive of transgender people,

that it's basically over.

Now, I don't ascribe to the binary,
as a nonbinary person myself.

But gender definitely isn't over.

Or, at least I don't think it is.

And maybe, just maybe,
gender is always beginning.

This last semester,

at roughly 10:23am,

two of my acting students,

while embodying delicious caricatures
of fraternity brothers --

forgive me, I don't remember
his or his name --

well, they rounded up the class,

and these two women in snapbacks
and baggy clothing

slacked their mouths to reveal lax jaws
and lax bro mentalities.

And, astounding as it was to watch,

these women fluctuated
between irony and satire,

the uncanny and the ruthlessly so,
pain and joy, until ultimately

they failed to be the men
they were choosing to embody.

They simply stopped talking.

Silence.

A lull hit the class,

and time seemed to be
sucked clean out of the room.

And in this moment of loud stillness,

one of the women,

still using her frat bro voice
though fully out of character,

said, nearly in a whisper,

(In frat bro voice)
"Gender is a social construct."

(Laughter)

I'll admit: I laughed along
with my students that morning,

partially at the comedic timing
that my student had in her delivery

but also at the fact that society
has turned gender performativity

into gender as social construct.

Now, listen to this:

I think that this idea has come
from renowned queer studies scholar

Judith Butler,

whose seminal work
in the performativity of gender

has gone on to be a staple

in undergraduate classrooms
at liberal arts institutions.

Now, this SparkNotes version
of Butler's work

is found in the idea that gender exists
in repeated words and actions.

And these performatives create
and are created

by the bodies of real human beings.

Now, listen to this:

"Moreover, in a 1988 essay,

Butler claims that gender is an act
which has been rehearsed.

In this way,

gender through repetition
becomes a recognizable script,

which requires actors to reproduce it."

Huh.

Much like my attempt
at "The Importance of Being Earnest."

Ooh, I mean -- look at my costume.

(In a deep voice) Why does this half
make me feel manly, masculine, suave,

(In a high voice) and this half makes me
feel girly, fabulous and feminine?

I mean, some of us even forget
that gender is there,

because it is so well-rehearsed
into our bodies.

But there's always an ideal of gender
that we can never quite achieve.

But it's up to us to play with it.

Now, I've played with gender
throughout my own career as an actor,

and in one semester
as an undergraduate student,

I was cast in two roles simultaneously:

Brad Majors in "The Rocky Horror Show,"

and Charlotte Ivanovna
in "The Cherry Orchard."

One man, one woman and one me.

I would go from one rehearsal,

playing the manly, aggressive Brad,

only to be pulled,
moments later, into a wig

and delicately blended eyeliner
as Charlotte, a German governess.

The constant push and pull
of these identities

was not only invaluable
to my work as an actor,

attempting to span the spectrum
of gender in my work,

but it also revealed to me

that my own queer identities

are deeply indebted to embodying
the extremes of gender.

These characters held important
facets of my identities,

of my body,

my daily pain,

of my social interactions, of my memories,

and rehearsing these characters
allowed me to explore those identities,

which has opened up my need
as an acting teacher

to show the importance
of playing with gender in rehearsal.

So when I present to you all

(In a high voice) Cecily

and (In a deep voice) Algernon,

there are these parts
of these two characters that I respect,

understand implicitly,

oppressions I can relate to,
fears I can embody,

aggressive tendencies
that I try to forget.

But there are also
plenty of characteristics

with which I have no personal experience,

nothing I can draw from.

And sometimes in a flurry of rehearsal,

of reading a script,

of creating a character,

well ... we make a mistake.

Algernon's aggressive
flirtation towards Cecily

doesn't sit well in my body,

or Cecily's calm demeanor
as written by Oscar Wilde,

just doesn't sit right,

and I literally trip up.

Now, this TEDx talk is a performance

in front of so many people.

And it differs quite drastically
from my classrooms in that regard.

But there is such a recognizable
pressure in our daily lives

to perform our gender,

our selves,

on a stage like this.

Quite frankly,

failure to pass as a man
or a woman effectively

is still dangerous for transgender
and gender nonconforming people.

And listen to this:

according to the 2015
US Transgender Survey,

nearly half of respondents voiced

that they had been verbally
harassed in the past year

because of their gender
identity or expression.

And that number is shown
only to increase in communities of color.

Many of us now claim to view gender
on a spectrum -- and that's great --

including 60 percent
of Generation Z individuals

who reported to the Pew
Research Center in 2019

that they believe forms with boxes
for "male" or "female"

should include more gender options.

But in spite of this,

there is still latent fear
of making gender mistakes

in offices, in classrooms,

in the eyes of the government,

in romantic situations,

and for some of us,

even in the mirror
when we wake up in the morning.

But our gender mistakes
have the potential for something good.

Even in the binary,

approaching life on the stage
as a man or a woman,

we can support each other
in experimentation,

trips and stumbles,

two-hour-long meditations on

or five-second costume
changes with gender.

And failure is a key part

of Judith Butler's theory
of performativity.

But I do believe that for most people,

like you all out there,

you might hear "performativity"
and hear "perform."

That's to say, performance-ready

or if not performance-ready,

perhaps performance in general
gives you anxiety.

Or the stage fright that I have
to this very day.

What we need to understand
is that failing at gender

can and should be a positive,
generative process.

The mistakes we make with gender
can only help us grow

and better understand the multitudes
of gender around us.

But we need to make space
for these mistakes.

We need to hold space for failure.

And that's where rehearsativity
comes into play.

Now, one of the main points
I like to make with my acting students

when they're last-minute panicking
about a monologue or a scene,

is that no one is ever actually ready.

I mean, we're never actually
done rehearsing,

we're just put in front of an audience.

When I taught a workshop
on gender-bending this last summer

at Somerville Arts for Youth,

I made it quite clear
to a group of middle school-aged students

that you cannot be a bully
and a good actor at the same time.

It's impossible.

There is something
about the act of embodiment

that requires empathy to survive.

Bullying prohibits the creative process.

As these middle schoolers
moved about the room,

trying on the extremes
of binary gender presentation,

this dissolved into galumphing,

laughter,

parodying of stereotypes
they see in movies and on television,

joy in the failure to understand gender.

Even my college students,
in "Introduction to Acting,"

jumped on the opportunity
to play with gender

when I restricted their time to think.

On Halloween last year,

I asked my students
to come to class in costume

and to, well, to throw their hats
into the middle of a circle,

metaphorically and literally,

and the only rule of the game

was that they had to go
into the center of the circle,

take on a hat, pick a character,

and then switch.

No time to think.

And it wasn't until two men in the class

noticed no one running
to the center of the circle

that they jumped into the center,

and one became

(In a deep voice) a British chauvinist,

(In a high voice) and the other,
a high-pitched, coy British lady.

Time stood still.

Laughter,

mimicry,

joy, again,

in the failure to understand gender.

That's the potential
of gender rehearsativity.

And I challenge you all

to think of your days as mini-rehearsals.

Cultivate spaces in your life
to explore gender.

And allow other people
to explore their gender.

Fail at gender.

I wish I could give you more tangible ways
to go out and do this.

But gender is funny like that.

Gender is an act which has been rehearsed.

Some acts more rehearsed
than others. (Laughs)

But gender is far from being perfect.

And sometimes,

just like in rehearsal,

when we support each other
in times of play,

in times of joy and times of pain,

we wind up succeeding more
than if we hadn't tried or failed at all.

A: Well, I think
that has been a great success.

I'm in love with Cecily,
and that is everything.

But I must see her before I go.

Oh, there she is.

C: Oh, I merely came back
to water the roses.

I thought we were at a TEDx talk with Jo.

A: Oh.

Well, they've gone to order
the dogcart for me.

C: Oh.

Are they going to take you
for a nice drive?

A: They're going to send me away.

C: Oh.

So we have to part.

A: I'm afraid so.

It's a very painful parting.

C: Well, the absence of old friends
one can endure with equanimity.

But even a momentary separation

from anyone whom they've just met

is almost unbearable.

JMR: Thank you.

(Applause)