She's Queer, The Phantom Of The Opera: Part One

There aren't enough lesbians in musical theatre, so I thought I'd reappropriate some existing musicals into my world of perversion and aberrance. A little bit of personal context and Takarazuka will be provided to facilitate transition into my queering of Phantom of the Opera.

When I was ten years old, I was just coming to term with what my identity was called by everyone else. Though I'd more or less known that I was gay long before this moment in life, it was around grade six that students and teachers in my school started talking about homosexuality. This was because of the ongoing debate in Canada on whether or not to make gay marriage legal, and my teacher thought that it was important we know about the issue and the realities of gay people.

The hurtful things that my fellow students said at the time still stay with me. They weren't trying to hurt me specifically, and it's my belief that their opinions must have been heavily influenced by their parents, but it was shocking and distressing for me.

Luckily, my birthday rolled around. The Christmas before, I'd received a soundtrack of Cats, which I'd enjoyed, and so on my birthday I got the London Highlights of The Phantom of the Opera.

What a horrible cover...

I don't really know how to explain what happened next.

Female Hamlets, East and West

Another repost. I just like this bit that I wrote.

The keys to the kingdom have finally been given to the women. At the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Seana McKenna prepares for her turn as the titular role in the Festival's upcoming production of Richard III. At the Royal Shakespeare Company, Kathryn Hunter plays Cleopatra, having just finished King Lear, not as the King this time but as the Fool. Meanwhile, Helen Mirren has wrapped up filming The Tempest, her Prospera hot on the heels of Christopher Plummer's Prospero.

Hardly a new phenomenon (the first two Hamlets on film, Sarah Bernhardt and Asta Nielsen, were both female), Shakespeare's greatest tragic roles have become fame for women as well as men. There's yet to be a mainstream female Romeo outside of opera (Bellini's Il Montecchi e Capuletti comes to mind), but the convention of the 'trousers role' has finally transcended its reputation as a novelty act and has gained prestige. An inversion of the Shakespearean practice of male players, gender-neutral casting does not seem so unnatural to the actresses who benefit from it.