A Transparent Musical, playing at the Mark Taper through
June 25, bills itself as a “timely new musical that’s delightfully queer,
unapologetically Jewish, and radically joyful.” I think we’d agree with all of
that. It was a fitting part of celebrating Pride month. The story (based on
characters from the Amazon Prime series “Transparent”, which we never saw)
starts with a father summoning her three adult children to come out to them as transgender
woman, and the family dynamics that ensue when she comes out publicly at the Jewish
Community Center’s Purim spiel. The play really pops in the second act, when multiple
characters reveal secret challenges, uncles are lost, nephews are found, and
the ghost of Magnus Hirschfeld is summoned. (Hirschfeld was a German physician/researcher
and pioneering advocate for sexual minorities in pre-WWII Germany.) Some
uncomfortable parallels between Weimar Germany and our present are drawn, as
the story takes some unexpected turns to a more joyful and hopeful end. I
really appreciated the illumination of some of the transgender experience, like
the songs “I’m Here, But
Not In My Body” and “What’s In A Name?” What really gave the play some great color
and power was the array of actual trans and non-binary actors performing in both
trans and cisgender roles. The Playbill was a panoply of pronouns and it gave
the show an extra dimension that underscored its message. We were very happy to
have caught this show before it ends.
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