Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

The transitions of Sylvan Oswald’s A Kind of Weather

Grey was not done with sex

A Kind of Weather: Transition as "a coming into focus."
A Kind of Weather: Transition as "a coming into focus."

Kid, the handsome, frenetic young trans writer surprised by a visit from his father Grey at the outset of Sylvan Oswald’s A Kind of Weather, is not the play’s main character. This is not a gradual revelation, the sort of thing that dawns on the viewer as actions progress and themes arise. Rather, it is announced near the outset, by Kid himself: “I’m not the main character!” At which point, Grey, dressed in similar-but-not-same shades of brown, steps forward to say, “I’m the main character!” This comes as something of a surprise, even given the little we’ve seen so far. Grey, as his name might suggest, does not command attention the way Kid does. Further, he’s not the one dealing with (and writing about) life as a trans person. He’s a straight, white, middle-aged doctor, and a father who long ago accepted the idea that his daughter is now his son. What gives? Isn’t this part of Diversionary Theatre’s Gender Series?

After the show, I asked a fellow attendee for his take on the main character announcement. He replied, “My question is, why would they take such a contemporary issue as transgenderism as mix it up with this old guy having an affair?” (Right, forgot to mention: Grey tells us early on that he had a long-term affair that began some time after his wife told him she was done with sex. Grey was not done with sex; even now, he says that his memories of it are “like the tiniest electrocution.”) It can be frustrating to have a question answered with a question, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the linking of Kid’s transgenderism and Grey’s affair helped to satisfy my curiosity, and what’s more, helped to get at the play’s essence. Gender is central to the play, but only insofar as it’s about sex — and the love that may attach to it/follow upon it/entwine with it — as experienced by a particular gender. The blunt version is that A Kind of Weather concerns the insight that may comes with hormone therapy. Grey has already learned to see Kid with new eyes; it’s Kid’s turn to look at Grey and reckon with what he sees, now that he’s a he.*

Sponsored
Sponsored

At first, that’s a tall order. Grey drops in while Kid is in the middle of two things: a memoir about his transition and a romance with the editor who got him the book deal. Both are tricky: he has avoided writing about transition because he thinks most books of that sort are boring, “like a bad reality show: How I Re-Did My House and Had a Spiritual Awakening.” But editor Rose is convincing, not least because she’s attracted and attractive. (Kid wants to be a father; Rose has fantasies of hysterical pregnancy.) Plus, they’re both smart about their situations, full of New York knowingness. (San Diego gets the world premiere, but the setting is Brooklyn.)

Still, she’s an editor, and therefore a manager. What’s more, Kid’s newfound, testosterone-fueled sex drive has him asking, “Why should one relationship have to do everything? Why is my desire wrong?” So there are uncertainties, and their attendant tensions, and now here’s Dad, showing up in a kind of fugue, half in Prospect Park and half in Jamaica, where he used to go with his wife. Dad is the one in crisis — bereft and bewildered. Dad is the main character who must find some kind of resolution, and Kid doesn’t even know quite what he’s going through. He just knows Dad’s a problem, and that he might be partly to blame.

The fugue state proves useful to the drama; it allows the details about Dad’s past — both immediate and distant — to emerge slowly, at appropriate moments. (Like most everything about the play, it has the advantage of being played believably and with gentle humor.) Some of his memories are given shape as scenes, several involving his long-term mistress. She enters the fray repeating a story from New York Magazine about a woman who gets lost and so gains “the maddening knowledge of the enormity just beyond the corner.” A strange land with no maps, where your only hope is to find someone who speaks your language. (At one point, she tells her married lover, “I just wish it felt wrong.” Morality is a kind of map — and yet.)

*I should be careful here. Kid isn’t a big fan of the idea that transition always means a change from one thing to another. At one point, he likens it instead to "a coming into focus." At another, he addresses the audience and explains that in theatre, “transition” refers to orchestrated change. Then, gesturing at the blond-wood set with backlit frosted glass that serves as apartment, party space, Jamaican beach, and Prospect Park, he announces that “there are no transitions here. The whole thing is in one place. People are who they say they are. If I say we’re in a musical now, we’re in a musical.” I’ll let you guess what happens next.

  • A Kind of Weather, by Sylvan Oswald
  • Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Boulevard, Suite 101, University Heights
  • Directed by Bea Basso, cast: Andrea Agosto, August Foreman, Salomon Maya, Andrew Oswald, Marci Anne Wuebben; scenic design, Yi-Chien Lee; costumes, Elisa Benzoni; lighting, Joel Britt; sound, Maeann Ross
  • Playing through March 8, Thursday at 7 pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2 pm.

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About doTERRA

A Kind of Weather: Transition as "a coming into focus."
A Kind of Weather: Transition as "a coming into focus."

Kid, the handsome, frenetic young trans writer surprised by a visit from his father Grey at the outset of Sylvan Oswald’s A Kind of Weather, is not the play’s main character. This is not a gradual revelation, the sort of thing that dawns on the viewer as actions progress and themes arise. Rather, it is announced near the outset, by Kid himself: “I’m not the main character!” At which point, Grey, dressed in similar-but-not-same shades of brown, steps forward to say, “I’m the main character!” This comes as something of a surprise, even given the little we’ve seen so far. Grey, as his name might suggest, does not command attention the way Kid does. Further, he’s not the one dealing with (and writing about) life as a trans person. He’s a straight, white, middle-aged doctor, and a father who long ago accepted the idea that his daughter is now his son. What gives? Isn’t this part of Diversionary Theatre’s Gender Series?

After the show, I asked a fellow attendee for his take on the main character announcement. He replied, “My question is, why would they take such a contemporary issue as transgenderism as mix it up with this old guy having an affair?” (Right, forgot to mention: Grey tells us early on that he had a long-term affair that began some time after his wife told him she was done with sex. Grey was not done with sex; even now, he says that his memories of it are “like the tiniest electrocution.”) It can be frustrating to have a question answered with a question, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the linking of Kid’s transgenderism and Grey’s affair helped to satisfy my curiosity, and what’s more, helped to get at the play’s essence. Gender is central to the play, but only insofar as it’s about sex — and the love that may attach to it/follow upon it/entwine with it — as experienced by a particular gender. The blunt version is that A Kind of Weather concerns the insight that may comes with hormone therapy. Grey has already learned to see Kid with new eyes; it’s Kid’s turn to look at Grey and reckon with what he sees, now that he’s a he.*

Sponsored
Sponsored

At first, that’s a tall order. Grey drops in while Kid is in the middle of two things: a memoir about his transition and a romance with the editor who got him the book deal. Both are tricky: he has avoided writing about transition because he thinks most books of that sort are boring, “like a bad reality show: How I Re-Did My House and Had a Spiritual Awakening.” But editor Rose is convincing, not least because she’s attracted and attractive. (Kid wants to be a father; Rose has fantasies of hysterical pregnancy.) Plus, they’re both smart about their situations, full of New York knowingness. (San Diego gets the world premiere, but the setting is Brooklyn.)

Still, she’s an editor, and therefore a manager. What’s more, Kid’s newfound, testosterone-fueled sex drive has him asking, “Why should one relationship have to do everything? Why is my desire wrong?” So there are uncertainties, and their attendant tensions, and now here’s Dad, showing up in a kind of fugue, half in Prospect Park and half in Jamaica, where he used to go with his wife. Dad is the one in crisis — bereft and bewildered. Dad is the main character who must find some kind of resolution, and Kid doesn’t even know quite what he’s going through. He just knows Dad’s a problem, and that he might be partly to blame.

The fugue state proves useful to the drama; it allows the details about Dad’s past — both immediate and distant — to emerge slowly, at appropriate moments. (Like most everything about the play, it has the advantage of being played believably and with gentle humor.) Some of his memories are given shape as scenes, several involving his long-term mistress. She enters the fray repeating a story from New York Magazine about a woman who gets lost and so gains “the maddening knowledge of the enormity just beyond the corner.” A strange land with no maps, where your only hope is to find someone who speaks your language. (At one point, she tells her married lover, “I just wish it felt wrong.” Morality is a kind of map — and yet.)

*I should be careful here. Kid isn’t a big fan of the idea that transition always means a change from one thing to another. At one point, he likens it instead to "a coming into focus." At another, he addresses the audience and explains that in theatre, “transition” refers to orchestrated change. Then, gesturing at the blond-wood set with backlit frosted glass that serves as apartment, party space, Jamaican beach, and Prospect Park, he announces that “there are no transitions here. The whole thing is in one place. People are who they say they are. If I say we’re in a musical now, we’re in a musical.” I’ll let you guess what happens next.

  • A Kind of Weather, by Sylvan Oswald
  • Diversionary Theatre, 4545 Park Boulevard, Suite 101, University Heights
  • Directed by Bea Basso, cast: Andrea Agosto, August Foreman, Salomon Maya, Andrew Oswald, Marci Anne Wuebben; scenic design, Yi-Chien Lee; costumes, Elisa Benzoni; lighting, Joel Britt; sound, Maeann Ross
  • Playing through March 8, Thursday at 7 pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 2 pm.
Comments
Sponsored

The latest copy of the Reader

Please enjoy this clickable Reader flipbook. Linked text and ads are flash-highlighted in blue for your convenience. To enhance your viewing, please open full screen mode by clicking the icon on the far right of the black flipbook toolbar.

Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Gonzo Report: Goose may have indie vibes, but they’re still a jam band

Fans turn out in force for show at SDSU
Next Article

At 4pm, this Farmer's Table restaurant in Chula Vista becomes Acqua e Farina

Brunch restaurant by day, Roman style trattoria by night
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader