Apr 15, 2005  |  By: PATRICK FOLlIARD  | COMMENTS     

WHEN VINCENT WORTHINGTON took the helm of Trumpet Vine Theatre Company two years ago, he decided to rework the group’s mission. His desire was and remains to explore the universal human experience through the eyes of gay people.

Transsexual playwright and author Kate Bornstein’s provocative 1989 work, “Hidden: A Gender,” is Trumpet Vines’ current effort. Directed by Worthington, the show fits nicely into the company’s season (aptly titled “Landscape of Identity”), while furthering its overall objective.

With a blast of white light and familiar circus sound, a ringmaster, whip in hand, bounds onstage, taking the center ring. Clearly, this showman is actually an attractive young woman.

The top hat and tails do little to disguise the daring bustier and distinctly feminine curves. Her grease paint handlebar moustache is merely a smudge on her Dove girl complexion.

Loudly, L.C. Doc Grinder (that’s the ringmaster’s painful name) promises the audience a glimpse into the forbidden and scary world of “gender blur,” where the primary villains are Madison Avenue, religious institutions, the medical field and our very own sense of self.

A combination of ringmaster, carnival barker, talk show host, and commercial spokesman for a product called “Gender Defender” (pink bottle for girls, blue for boys), Grinder (Ghillian Porter) adamantly pushes traditional concepts of gender, a devil’s advocate defying the audience to think outside of set parameters.

FROM THERE, THE show intriguingly tracks two oddly parallel lives, separated by miles and decades: Herculine/Abel Barbin, an actual 19th century French hermaphrodite, and Herman/Kate Amberstone, a male- to-female transsexual, autobiographically based on the playwright.

We first meet tortured Herculine (sensitively acted by Sarah Fischer) as a confused young girl at convent school kneeling before a flickering candle, praying to the virgin. She begs forgiveness for her strong romantic attraction to another girl, and an unladylike thirst for knowledge.

Later we find her as a young teacher and even more confused. Once again, Herculine is in love with a woman and uncomfortable with her own academic leanings. When it’s discovered that she’s a hermaphrodite, the local physician disastrously orders her to live the remainder of her life as a man.

Even in kindergarten Herman (Katie Atkinson) knew she was a woman. Before seeking sexual reassignment surgery as an adult, she passes years as a sexy stud actor, and later a cult member. As Kate, she is a lesbian, continuing her life as a woman outside the lines.

VERY DIDACTIC, BORNSTEIN’S play instructs audiences to look at gender in new ways, and exposes the harmful effect of enforcing oppressive gender expectations.

Sometimes, the playwright employs humor in getting her point across. Unfortunately, as performed by this three-woman cast, the comic bits aren’t particularly funny.

Whether it’s the zany skit involving Doctors Weenie and Razor, Herman’s Marx physicians, or the snooty chef who demonstrates Herman’s surgery with a sharp knife and a big dough penis, the funny stuff falls a little flat.

Nevertheless, “Hidden: A Gender” offers a fine introduction to a fascinatingly complex subject.