I haven't posted on this blog in a while, so here is my first post to revive it. Do let me know what you think in the comments, or get in touch via email.
Photo Credit: Elise Rose
Dang. Wow.
It’s difficult to know how to start a review when you bawled your eyes out after leaving a show.
Like, it was a lot.
My overwhelming emotion was pure fear and panic.
If you’ve never encountered Travis Albanza, they are an incredibly influential writer, performer and theatre-maker whose work platforms black trans and queer stories. Their debut show, Burgerz, first premiered at Hackney Showroom in 2018 and stems from an autobiographical premise. In 2016, someone threw a burger at Travis on Waterloo bridge, shouted a transphobic slur, and though there were hundreds of people around, no one on the bridge did anything. The play is Travis’ creative, emotive response to this and other incidents of transphobic abuse, harassment or alienisation that they have experienced in public forums i.e. on the street, on buses, on the underground and in the media.
The play takes the form of an interactive cooking session. Travis comes out of a large shipping container, in a flowery dress and earrings. Inside it are a collection of variously-sized cardboard boxes from which Travis procures props, and in front of it is a kitchen island. Travis brings an audience member up onto the stage who identifies as a cis (i.e. not trans) hetero (i.e. straight) man, and together they make a burger from scratch.
There is a playfulness to Travis’ relationship with the audience member, but also a sense of aggression – the man is asked provocative questions, teased, belittled and generally made to feel guilty as they cook together. Burgerz seems to sit in the space between political theatre and a deeply personal account of suffering, and Travis’ interaction style really wakes the audience up and gives them a sense of accountability for social issues. Their writing makes the audience member on stage, and the rest of the audience, feel complacent in society’s systemic transphobia and racism, and more particularly, feel as though they are to blame for the abuse Travis has endured, and the fact that no-one helped Travis when someone threw a burger at them.
It is an interesting premise in theory, but experiencing it is incredibly intense. I get the feeling that the show is aimed at cis people, because sitting in the audience, you can’t help but feel guilty. But for me, as a recently-out trans person, I left the theatre in absolute panic, because while on the surface, I was feeling guilty and complacent for Travis’ pain, underneath that, the play gives an undeniably clear message, that being openly trans in our society is not safe. I couldn’t stop crying because of that fact, muffling my voice and my tears inside my scarf so that no one on the tube home would see and ask me questions. Initially, it made me want to crawl straight back in the closet, but and after a while, I thought, more soberly, that every trans person knows that if they want to be free to express themselves and be happy, they must risk their safety to do that. Travis dedicates time and space within the show to the fact that that risk is higher, and that self-expression is more dangerous, if you also experience racism.
So it’s not an easy watch. You don’t get that ‘magic of the theatre’ vibe – it’s just not that kind of play. But what Travis does wonderfully, is express themselves lucidly, poetically, in a way that bares the utter truth. The writing is at once lyrical and cutting, colloquial yet literary. One scene sees Travis tell stories of non-binary people hailed as holy in numerous ancient cultures around the world, while they climb above the set, head circled in a halo of flashing purple disco lights. And the format is gorgeously sensory. As Travis cooks the burger with the audience member on stage, we can watch and smell them slice onions, tomatoes, lettuce and a bread bun, put raw meat through a meat grinder, and fry the meat patty. The frying scene is especially poignant, and gives a real sensory experience with the smoky meat smell, along with the sizzle of the burger patty and the smoke that comes off it.
Burgerz is a cultural and historical phenomenon. It is a vital piece of theatre that everyone should watch, including law-makers, law enforcers, cis and trans people of all walks of life. It pushes artistic boundaries to pursue social change in real time, and to make the audience rethink the way they live their lives and treat others in a practical, visceral way. But at the same time, it is a devastating watch. Having someone relay their trauma live on stage can be triggering for an audience, and for anyone who has experienced racism or transphobia, Burgerz might be just a bit too real.
I'm gonna carry on with the fun star system I started last year:
🖤🏳️⚧️
