Review: H to He (I’m turning into a Man), Finborough Theatre

Energetic 80s disco music reverberates throughout the theatre, before Helen (Claire Dowie) enters the stage via the side aisle. She is dancing to the sound of Tina Turner’s ‘I’m Simply The Best’ and precariously balanced on glittery sparkle-laden heeled sandals, stumbling occasionally into members of the audience. Moving into the centre of the audience, she provocatively hitches up her leather zipped mini skirt, showing a bit of leg, flirting with individuals. A rapport is established and she is met with good natured humour. Returning to the stage, she turns to the audience to declare, with arms wide open: “I’m turning into a man!”

Dowie’s look is part drag, part ageing queen. She’s wearing an unflattering wig, and flicks her false bright red nails to the floor but her gender is deliberately uncertain. There are obvious feminine attributes, but these are obscured by a conscious maleness of form and declared intent. What follows is a 75 minute monologue which follows her physical and mental transition from female to male.

First written and performed by Dowie in 2005, H to He is inspired by Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Her character wakes up to find she is, literally, turning into a man. It’s funny, highly descriptive, slightly surreal and littered with stereotyped masculinity as she reacts to the transformation, and those around her react back. She disrobes whilst addressing the audience, eyeballing them. The result is fascinating: her wig comes off, showing her close cropped grey hair under a hair net, and bizarrely she is almost more female as a result. She scrubs the makeup from her eyes and amends her dress several times in a way that serves to accentuate her androgyny, the choice of clothing often paradoxical.

A highly intense, personal experience Dowie always addresses the audience directly, often eyeballing one person at a time, as if confiding in us personally. Her writing is sublime: laced through with sharp humour and honed self-perception, she manages to describe her corporal journey of transformation alongside her mental journey, the two often at odds with each other. It makes for a very interesting thought piece: after all, what IS male? What IS female? And why, as a society, do we try to attribute such polarised sexual identities to everything? A particularly amusing scene involving everyday vegetables serves to highlight this point. The staging emphasises this dichotomy with Dowie flanked on either side by a mannequin; one wearing the virginal clothes of an angel, the other black leather with biker boots.

And of course, there is the final taboo: aging and menopause (or andropause for men, which, whilst not a direct equivalent of the female process, is the term for the gradual decline of testosterone). Dowie is not young, and her decision to perform this piece 20 years on from inception is fascinating, particularly in the current political climate. This transition to male is experienced alongside ageing, the blurring of gender identity becoming more apparent as both sexes lose their hormones.

There were occasional stumbles of speech, and it’s a little drawn out, but this is a really interesting, clever examination of gender stereotypes and the gritty reality of transitioning and ageing. Played throughout with a great dollop of humour and self-deprecation, it was met with guttural laughs and support from the audience.

Written by: Claire Dowie

H to He is part of Dowie’s Swansong series of four plays at the Finborough Theatre until 5 July.