A writer is a person who feels the need to have certain feelings and thoughts and experiences described and have certain ideas explored and at one point or another he makes the audacious choice to appoint himself as the person who can conceivably do this”
Scott Spenser
\With TRIPLE X Glace Chase makes the audacious choice to write a play about what it’s like to live life as a trans woman in today’s world. Not only does she write the play she also plays the leading role, giving a very fine performance.
Glace plays Dexie, a trans woman who falls for Scotty, a high flying New York banker.
Scotty can’t quite believe the strong feelings that he develops for Dexie. He is conflicted as he is about to marry his long time girlfriend. Josh McConville is excellent in the role.
The tumultuous affair turns Scotty life’s around. He tries to keep the affair private but doesn’t succeed. His flatmate and best friend Jase, assuredly played by Elijah Williams, is at first very dismissive but is soon accepting.
Scotty’s feminist, gay sister Claire, well played by Contessa Treffone, thinks that the affair is just an affair that Scotty is going through.
Christen O’Leary is excellent in a primarily comic role as Scotty’s mother, Deborah, who is intolerant and the most opposed to Scotty’s affair.
Renee Mulder’s set of Scotty’s New York apartment works well. The split level design brilliantly comes alive when Deborah is trying to sleep in the upstairs bedroom when she hears Dexie and Scotty having very loud sex downstairs, and becomes increasingly distraught. It is high comedy, but there is a darker side when Deborah comes across Dexie as she leaves the apartment and spits at her.
Director Paige Rattray has been involved with Glace’s play from the time it was workshopped by the Sydney Theatre Company in its drafts program. Rattray confidently, and with a lot of love and care, directs the production.
Ben Hughes’ lighting design and Kelly Ryall’s soundscape are very effective.
There is plenty of humour in this production but Glace never lets us forget how difficult life as a trans woman, and how fraught her relationships as her partners waiver with the force of society’s pressures.
Well worth a visit TRIPLE X is playing the Wharf 1 Theatre at the Sydney Theatre Company until 26 February 2022.
Glace Chase and Josh McConville in ‘Triple X’. Production photography by Prudence Upton
