Gender explored in original play

With an obvious nod to the Bard, University of British Columbia MFA candidate Wren Handman’s original script Double Double Foil and Fumble takes to the stage February 9-12 in a fundraiser for Pride UBC.

A joint production between UBC's Theatre and Creative Writing faculties, Double Double Foil and Fumble follows the story of five university-aged friends as they get together to weave some magic; only none of them know what they're doing, half of them don't believe in magic, and some of them have ulterior motives.  Add to that the gender-bending reality that every time a character exits and returns their gender changes, though the character and relationships stay the same.

The idea of adding the gender-bend element to the story came from a conversation playwright Handman had with a professional actress friend in Toronto who complained about the lack of Canadian work that deals with issues of gender.

“The idea of the show was sparked very much by the theme of how gender affects character,” explained Handman.  “We speak in academic workshops about character's voices, and something that comes up is whether a character sounds ‘male’ or ‘female’, and I decided that was something that I wanted to explore. I'm very interested by the conflicting realities of gender as biological versus gender as identity, and as such the play was born.”

According to Handman the gender bend leads to the exploration of other LGBTQ issues as well: “Two of the characters are dating, so sometimes they are a straight couple and sometimes they are a lesbian couple and sometimes they are a gay couple.  One of the other characters reacts to the couple different when they are gay or straight, so there's some exploration of homophobia and how that can affect people's relationships.”

Ultimately Handman hopes that the show will challenge people’s notion of gender and how they let gender impact their judgements and decisions.

“The show is a comedy, so they'll hopefully come out of it laughing, but thinking too.”

Tickets are by donation with all proceeds going to Pride UBC which offers educational and social services dealing with sexual and gender diversity to the University of British Columbia community.

Double Double Foil and Fumble
The Dorothy Somerset Studio, UBC
9 - 12 February 2011

Tickets by donation. All proceeds to Pride UBC. Visit http://www.foilandfumble.webs.com for more information.