Scene Unseen, a filmed intimate cabaret presented by Royal & Derngate, Northampton and English Touring Opera, is available to watch online via ETO at Home until December.
Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★
A filmed cabaret, directed by James Dacre and filmed by David Lefeber, this solo performance by Jessica Walker in her own words set to music by Joseph Atkins who accompanies on piano, is intensely personal, frank and explicit.
Walker has an engaging presence, watching at home on a PC it comes over like a confessional. Atkins is complicit in the reveal, the pair make a beguiling duo. Straddling a line between contemporary opera with hints of jazz, the vocal line sits in the middle of Walker’s voice for the most part, ensuring that the words are crystal clear. From the world of musical theatre there are echoes of composer Jeanine Tesori and Michael John La Chiusa.
A series of anecdotes, it unravels with a hint of mystery, each section with a chapter heading. An introduction where Walker is at a wedding unsure of whether she feels like a bride or bridegroom is lively and upbeat, a jolly waltz laced with humour.
This leads into The Story Begins, a dream and her desire to disappear into other people, both men and women. “My mother bought dolls in pink frilly dresses. I dressed the dolls as boys and cut off their long tresses.” In Childhood we are reminded that talk of gender identity wasn’t commonplace in the 1970s as her tomboy activities mimic those of the boys she prefers to run around with. “Me copying the boys, trying to pee against a tree. Warm liquid running down my thighs, before I had time to realise, with utter dismay, I could not spray.”
Wrong Somehow again deals with her inability to conform to expectations of how a girl should behave and Crane Man tells us of visits from a man who would haul her into the air and bring her toy fire engines.
Shoe Stall is an enigmatic account of a couple who she often passes in a market who seemed to lead unfulfilled lives, while Girl’s Boy details her lesbian feelings and her first love, soon to be betrayed. Train Crash recounts a recurring dream of a sexual assault on a French train and her escape. Surprises reveals family skeletons and then we hear of an unexpected foray into heterosexuality while working in a Chelsea bar “with a bald paunchy guy whose party trick was naked headstands”.
Losing my Voice is just that, and disastrous attempts with a psychotherapist, Alexander teacher and yoga teacher to regain it.
The second part begins with Sitting Shiva, as family revelations continue. This is possibly the most emotional part of the narrative, how seemingly unimportant events in a person’s childhood can linger in the subconscious and haunt for years to come. Disappointing Childhood is just that. “Confusion in your parent’s eyes when they realise you’re not the same as them.”
And finally we are full circle at Wedding Day. A day of joyous nuptials, doubts about whether she is the bride or bridegroom “quietly tapping away, taking the shine off the day”.
Walker’s exploration of her childhood and the impact on her gender duality is genuinely moving, and Atkins’ music enhances her words with sensitivity, moving seamlessly between prose and rhyme, occasionally soaring with a burst of emotion. The epilogue, Deconstructing the Act, sums up her journey, reaching a stage where she finally feels able to construct this cabaret with uninhibited honesty “deconstructed here tonight, no fear of self-destruction tonight”. And done with a mocking humour.
English Touring Opera is to be applauded for this addition to the canon of works which we are seeing made available for home viewing from our major cultural institutions.
Filmed with imagination by David Lefeber, with animations by Thomas Hicks and props by Darren Abel, it’s original, thought-provoking, and funny with a refreshing new slant on gender identity.
Leon Ferguson
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