Barry is sorting through her mum’s things, preparing for when the time comes. Mum is in another room, unseen, nearing the end of her battle with COPD. Barry’s sibling Sarah turns up out of the blue after a lengthy absence, hoping to get to see her mum for one last time, but she’s not entirely as Barry remembers her, and there’s a lot of catching up to do.
Kai Jolley’s new play This Skin of Mine explores the transgender experience through the eyes of these two characters and, while acknowledging that the story is very different for every individual who makes the transition, it gives voice to a lot of complicated emotions.
Presenting sensitive subject matter in the form of a comedy is a very effective way of unravelling the minefield of issues without allowing the play to become too message-heavy. Barry travels a psychological rollercoaster on discovering the reason for Sarah’s supposed abandonment. Tackling this head-on with wit enables her to ask all her seemingly crazy questions with disarmingly genuine innocence. The hows and whys in Barry’s head fall out of her mouth and land awkwardly between them, while Sarah tries to explain why there never was going to be a right or easy time to explain.
What is important in the end is that they are still the same two people who grew up together, but now better able to be themselves. They both share the same loss of a parent and still have the same need to protect each other that they always had.
Janelle Thompson and Eden Jodie both give equally strong performances that make the text feel like their own. Under Jolley’s direction, they find great pace and timing in his words, and only in a few places, towards the end of the piece, does the framework of message delivery show through the fabric of the dialogue.
People never make life-changing decisions in a vacuum, and ultimately have to deal with the day to day pressures of life alongside their own very personal journeys. This Skin of Mine packs a lot of emotional mileage into a short timespan, and offers both food for thought and a platform for some important conversations.
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| Janelle Thompson and Eden Jodie in This Skin of Mine |
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