San Francisco Fringe 2018
My Preferred Pronoun is We
Lyralen Kaye
Genre: Comedy, LGBTQ, Physical Theatre, Solo Performance, Stand-Up, Storytelling
Venue: Exit Theatre
Festival: San Francisco Fringe
Low Down
The hilarious story of Lyralen Kaye’s decision to move to Canada immediately in November of 2016…and her complete ignorance about what it would take to get all her personalities over the border. Combining storytelling, stand-up comedy and physical theater, this show is a roller coaster of immigration struggles, long term gay marriage comedy and the need to accept all of yourselves!
Review
Where are we? More importantly where do we want to be and why? People have different reasons to do things in order to get what they want, but at a recent pivotal time in the United States Lyralen Kaye decided to move to avoid what she didn’t want. Kaye’s life and work is firmly in theatre, as an actor, teacher, writer and director and uprooting oneself from a creative network and community would be difficult. Nevertheless she was motivated and oh so determined that she started this process – to emigrate.
She backtracks, telling us – or rather acting everything out – about the lead up to this decision. She is a vibrant storyteller and accomplished actor bringing several characters to life through brief conversations plus giving us her own point of view – in the first ten minutes! The story continues and topics in the news come up, such as…Trump…conversion therapy…
Kaye is an activist in the arts and she lives by her word, thus her strong feelings for the current political situation is driving her desire to be somewhere else. She is sincere narrating and in conversations between herself and others about life in 2016 when she decides to move to Canada. She infuses humor with witty quips like “I eat maple syrup on everything” hoping to enhance her visa application!
Moving is a complex business which needs careful consideration of all the possible angles and parts of the process – and Kaye performs several very effective quick witted sequences of opinions from different characters with rapidly changing voices and points of view. These characters offer many dynamics to her performance, as experienced by Kaye, such as reality, humor, pathos, drama and more. Kaye is a physical actor and she moves about the space, rolls on the ground, jumps up and focuses on us with her expressive face. The situations she creates through narration, mime and characterizations are vivid and resonate.
This story is fascinating and Kaye is funny, vulnerable, open, wears her heart on her sleeve and confides her hopes, dreams and disappointments. She is able to find the human side as well as integrate humor at the right time – when describing frustrations she is able to top herself with a brief and intuitive phrase or knowing look to the audience.
The effective lighting design brings drama and comedic moments that enhance the storytelling.
Kaye moves quickly and before you know it the stage is populated with many people involved in her mammoth decision. Kaye has created a fascinating well crafted show that has depth and humor – it’s topical, very well performed, poignant and impactful, Highly Recommended!
