In the same week as International Transgender Day of Visibility, there is a particular delight in watching a non-conforming new musical find its voice on stage. Cassie Hamilton’s A Transgender Woman on the Internet, Crying, presented by Green Door Theatre Company, attempts to capture lightning in a bottle: staging an accessible, hyperpop, drum-and-bass exploration of trans identity in the digital age.
Developed through ATYP’s Fresh Ink and previously seen in workshop form at the Rebel Theatre, the show arrives at the Old Fitz Theatre in Sydney with significant buzz.
A Transgender Woman on the Internet, Crying follows Avis (Cassie Hamilton), an influencer whose pursuit of digital validation leads her into a messy web of romance, betrayal and a very public fall from grace. It borrows the straight, white, commercial theatrical form of the rom-com musical and wraps it in a subversive queer bow.
A Transgender Woman on the Internet, Crying review – quick links
A ‘refreshingly youthful’ musical
A Transgender Woman on the Internet, Crying is at its best when it leans into this subversion. The choreography by Dan Ham is punchy and brilliant, playing an integral role in the storytelling. It offers the cast opportunities for sharp physical comedy while winking at the TikTok dance aesthetic through static framing and phone camera movements.
Musically, Hamilton and Music Director Lillian Hearne have crafted something genuinely fresh for the Australian landscape. To hear drum and bass and hyperpop integrated into a chamber musical is bold and refreshingly youthful.
However, the show often finds itself at odds with its own medium. Theatre is a slow artform, and there is an inherent risk when translating online culture for the stage. By using internet references like James Charles or specific niche memes, the show risks feeling dated by the time the curtain rises.
While the audience relished the ‘IYKYK’ nods to Adventure Time or Contrapoints, the satirical edge occasionally feels as though it has been drawn to invite a mainstream audience in, rather than speaking directly to the chronically online queers.
The logic of the stage
The primary struggle lies in the ‘musical-logic’. In a genre where characters sing because they can no longer speak, the emotional stakes here can feel unearned. The plot moves with a rhythm borrowed from French farce – conversations overheard from the next room, hidden intentions and secret agendas – and at other times, theatre for young people. Indeed, one suspects this show would go down a treat with high school-aged audiences navigating their own digital footprints.
The characters are established through thin archetypes, with Ruby Jenkins’ costumes flagging the ditsy, the cynical or the edgy before we learn it through action. Further to this, the audience is often told about a transformation rather than witnessing it.
The depth of connection is occasionally hampered by dialogue that feels like a list of objectives made aloud. Lines like ‘I have to be perfect’ do the heavy-lifting, when we never quite see why Avis has amassed such a monumental following online.
Perhaps this is a deliberate comment on the ‘Dylan Mulvaney’ style of influencer, known more for a Kardashian-esque presence and the handling of fame than for piercing critical thinking.
A bold swing
Despite these growing pains, the production is a bold swing. Jenkins’ grungy, graffiti-laden set creates a perfect home for this world. Subversive numbers like Serving Cunt show exactly what Hamilton is capable of: dark, bold and playfully queer clowning.
Teo Vergara brings a deft comedic hand as Sasha, and Rosie Rai as Mouth Feel uses vocal modulation akin to the heavy vocoder style of Charli XCX – a clever sonic metaphor for the constant modulation of trans identity.
Ultimately, A Transgender Woman on the Internet, Crying is a fascinating look at the Disneyfication of trans trauma. It successfully centres the trans experience in the face of overwhelming external pressures: the vitriol of trans-exclusionary rhetoric on one side, and the reductive biological essentialism of ‘well-meaning’ supporters on the other.
Cassie Hamilton’s production asks whether wholeness is possible in a digital world that demands a ‘perfect’ performance. While it may be clunky in its execution, its heart is firmly on its sleeve and warmly embraced by the community it belongs to.
A Transgender Woman On The Internet, Crying plays at the Old Fitz Theatre, Sydney until 11 April.
This article is published as part of ArtsHub’s Creative Journalism Fellowship, an initiative supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
