Reading the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s official blurb about its upcoming Things I Know to Be True, the American premiere of Australian playwright Andrew Bovell’s 2016 play, one wouldn’t expect it to be more than it appears, namely, “a unique perspective on the struggles the four adult Price children face to establish their identities and deal with personal crises.” With a name change, that could describe King Lear or Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. But vocabulary matters. The hint is in the keyword “identities.”
A psychological definition reads: “A person’s identity is defined as the totality of one’s self-construal.” Today, “identity” is a buzz word. We talk about identity theft, identity politics and personal identity, the latter especially in the realm of gender. In Things I Know to Be True, for one character, Mia (Kevin Kantor), it’s the crux of the matter. For the cast’s remaining five members, defining their individual identities presents each with a specific struggle.
Parents Fran and Bob (Jordan Baker and Bill Geisslinger, respectively) struggle to negotiate their identities as parents; daughters Rosie (Aubyn Heglie) and Pip (Kelley Faulkner) and brother Ben (Zach Fifer) struggle to grow into theirs. For all, it’s a tough path marked by crossroads that need to be taken. Fran and Bob insist on parental intervention for the perceived good of the child, which may or may not have the intended effect. Meanwhile, the children are torn between the norms of deference to their parents (as expected of children) and the need to realize their identity.
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Most of the action takes place on a naturalistic, stylized set designed by Scott Davis. A backyard rose garden with dominating tree is reminiscent of a Kabuki stage with its great pine. But, unlike the immutable pine, the tree’s foliage changes with the passing seasons. The seasons also serve to mark the acts—the four siblings’ appearances coinciding with the entrance of each new season.
Remarkable for the Milwaukee’s Rep’s staging is the casting of Kantor as Mia. Kantor is non-binary (not identifying as either distinctly male or female gender) and prefers the pronoun choices “they, them.” Their casting is unique in the play’s production history. Playwrights rely on audiences identifying with characters, so this could present a challenge. Asked how that unexpected nuance should be perceived by the audience, Kantor explains that “people have dangerous misconceptions about trans folk, because they’ve never met someone who identifies as such. It’s difficult to not harbor fears when in a new environment. I exist very publicly. If I make you uncomfortable, I want you to sit in it and metabolize that and come to terms with why someone living their life gives you discomfort.”
‘Historic’ Gender Identity and Contemporary Reality
Kantor, who came out as non-binary at 22, has a long performance history as a poet, actor and director. But they are focused also as an activist who believes that the historic understanding of gender roles has been superseded by contemporary reality. “I recognize my gender is on a spectrum. I can feel the binary is a lie. Gender has been socialized along that binary. It’s a box people feel they have to live in. I want to burn gender to the ground and fashion my face from the ashes,” they explain.
The Milwaukee Rep’s innovative casting is also a means for Kantor to give their character a necessary dimensional spectrum. “There is no one type of queer person. Our sexuality isn’t the length and breadth of who we are,” they said.
The theme of identity is not restricted to Mia. Each of Fran and Bob’s adult children arrive back to the rose garden with their own conflicted sense of whom they are. It’s about Pip being a wife and a mother, Rosie’s evolving womanhood and Ben dealing with wealth and class. Interestingly, it is the children’s honesty that most disarms the parents who are themselves too immersed in their own identities as parents and the protective nature of parental love to embrace the reality that loving their children doesn’t always produce the expected result.
Director Mark Clements explains the play’s message as familial love that on one hand provides an inescapable bond, but on the other hand restrains and even constricts each character’s pursuit of their individual identity. That bewildering dichotomy can be impossible to overcome.
The Milwaukee Repertory Theatre presents Things I Know to Be True March 5-31 at the Quadracci Powerhouse, 108 E. Wells. For tickets, call 414-224-9490 or visit milwaukeerep.com.
