Ransacking Troy from a non-binary perspective
From Caitlyn MacInnis’s Instagram account:
“I play Cur, and I can’t wait for you to meet her/him/them LOL.”
Seeing non-binary representation in a play is still something that is not that common. But thanks to the work of Erin Shields and director Jackie Maxwell, Stratford Festival’s production of Ransacking Troy allowed the space to incorporate a queer presenting character into a femme/femme presenting cast. This working of the story of the Trojan War from a women’s perspective drew me in as any work that is willing to deconstruct the patriarchy speaks to the place that I now find myself in.
Within minutes of the start of the play I realized that wow, I was watching this play through a non-binary lens. I do not see myself as theatre critic but here I am offering up a non-binary critique of this play.
I imagine for the majority of the audience, the tension in the play would be the interplay between the masculine and the feminine and how power manifested itself. On the surface this seems to be the gendered binary that has been the dominant throughout history. But that is too simplistic both within the play, historically and contextually. The portrayal of the men was too monolithic and yet the group of women showed the incredible diversity of what we may call the feminine. Age, race, sexuality, and gender were on full display. This is a play of intersectionality that captures so much of the tension of our current time.
In a pivotal scene, the women gather in a circle to speak with one voice of the anger and rage they felt at their treatment by men and the societal attitudes of the time, each displaying a unique voice and agency all their own. From a feminine lens the women are owning the emotion of rage that traditionally has been the one (and perhaps only) emotion allowed for men. This rage transmutes into the action that propels the women to mount their journey to Troy to end the war. As a non-binary person, to bring together the emotions that society has deemed as either the property of the masculine and feminine comes very naturally to me, highlighting the arbitrary construct created by heteronormativity. I found myself able to empathize with the struggle of breaking free of these artificial constraints for both the men and women. Watching the tragedy of this struggle portrayed by Homer is instructive for what I see happening in our society today as people struggle with the constraints of rigid gender expectations.
But of all the characters, the one that I find most intriguing, is the character of Cur. Shields invented this character to not only introduce a queer, working-class character, but also one who steps outside the gender norm of a female who works outside the home as a shipwright, an anomaly in most of Ancient Greece.
The theatre of Ancient Greece as well as Shakespeare play with the fluidity of gender and the issues that emanate from the strict arbitrary roles assigned each gender. Dionysus, the Greek god of theatre embodies the range of human emotions from the joy of “ekstasis” to unbridled rage. Dionysus although a male god, has properties of gender fluidity and androgyny. Shakespeare often used disguise and cross dressing as pivotal points of the narrative; Rosalind in As you Like it becomes the boy Ganymede to give her a platform to challenge Orlando while Viola in Twelfth Night cross dresses to better survive in the world after a shipwreck.
The portrayal of non-binary and trans characters, in our popular culture as stereotypes that are far from the reality of my or other non-binary experiences is not representative and does harm. Non binary portrayal as a villain, the butt of a joke, something exotic or tragic is not a space I would strive to inhabit. However, seeing Cur as a positive, problem solver, and builder, and a person capable of falling in love with Hermione captures the breadth of humanity that non-binary and trans people embody. Cur carries male and female traits with a wholeness. At the end of the play, the women face the decision to either go back to their home with the realization that creating a society of gender equality will be a long game or to return to Circes to create an alternative society run by women. Cur chooses to not return as their embrace of the masculine and feminine requires no negotiation.
And that is affirming.