There aren’t a lot of plays like HIR out there,” Salem Brophy says. “I can’t audition as myself and just end up in a rom com… It’s important that Jobsite cast a transgender actor in this role.”
Brophy plays Max, a lead in the Jobsite Theater’s production of the pitch-black comedy HIR, pronounced “here.” It follows a suburban family comprised of a battered housewife, an Afghanistan veteran, a disabled stroke victim and Max, the transgender “leftist teenager,” as they deal with a new and absurd reality.
Watermark caught up with Brophy to discuss the importance of transgender representation on the stage and pronouns both on and off of it.
WATERMARK: What led you to pursue theater?
SALEM BROPHY: I was a kid that would join different activities and then immediately quit. Theater was always something that even if I quit, I always came back. I realized that all I really wanted to do was be on stage and be involved with telling stories, whether that’s writing, doing set design or [performing.]
You describe yourself as transmasculine. How would you define that to readers who may not be familiar with the term?
People who identify as transmasculine tend to be people who are assigned female at birth and don’t necessarily agree totally with it, or just outright disagree with it. Transmasculine is an umbrella that includes trans guys, but it also includes non-binary people who may be more masculine in presentation.
It’s also a somewhat weird word, If I’m a trans guy, and I call myself transmasculine because technically that’s correct… what if I’m not masculine at all?
What drew you to HIR?
My friend saw the casting call for transgender actors in Tampa Bay and immediately sent it to me. I had told myself I was going to take a break from acting, but I thought it looked really cool. I was really worried when I first started reading it because at first Max looks almost stereotypical. But as I kept reading, I realized that none of the characters were stereotypes at all.
How so?
They had some stereotypical things to them, but they were a lot more human than that. They were people, they weren’t just caricatures. It was clearly written from a place of wanting to challenge everyone: not just right-wing people but also people who think of themselves as progressive.
How do you think it challenges the right?
The playwright isn’t interested in converting the Mike Pences of the world, because they’re beyond reproach. But there could be some moderately conservative parents of trans teens in the audience who don’t know what is going on with their kid.
Maybe seeing Max scares them at first, but later they understand that this is a human being. This isn’t just a little punk, although Max is definitely a little punk. The different subversions of the archetypes that we’re used to: the vet, the trans teenager, the battered housewife…. I think that challenges a lot of conceptions about family values that I think are typical of right-wing conservatives.
How are progressives challenged?
I think it does an even better job of lampooning people who tend to see themselves as very liberal, progressive or open-minded. [People] think they’re hip, open or accepting, but then something comes in and they’re like, well that’s ludicrous. That’s a step over the line. But is it?
How would you explain Max’s preferred pronouns hir and ze?
They’re a third option for gender pronouns that don’t have anything to do with he/him, or she/her. I think for Max, they’re significant because ze has an attachment to LGBT history.
They’re pronouns that were used by Leslie Feinberg who wrote Stone Butch Blues and was a pioneer of trans masculinity and of blurring the lines of gender and sexuality. Hir is a pun because it’s pronounced like “here.”
Which pronouns do you prefer?
For simplicity I tell people I prefer he or him, but I don’t really know what pronouns I prefer. The idea that assigning gender to pronouns seems a little nebulous to me because there’s this history of lesbians using “he/him” and gay men using “she/her.” I don’t care, as long as if someone’s going to call me “she/her” it’s not with the intent that I’m a cisgender woman because I’m not. I’m like, super not.
Why is transgender representation so important?
If you have a trans woman in a play and you cast a cisgender man, to a certain extent you’re just backing the idea that trans women are just men in dresses. If you’re looking to cast a trans guy and you cast a cisgender girl instead, you’re backing up the idea that these are just young women that want to be men.
It takes opportunities for employment away from transgender actors. There are lots of us out there; I’m proof of that. As a transgender actor, I occupy this gray, third space in-between being female or male.
If I audition for a role that’s a man, I usually won’t get it. I can’t pass as a guy as well as a cisgender guy can, if at all. There aren’t a lot of plays like HIR out there. You can’t just have a play where there happens to be a trans character and it’s not a big deal at all. I can’t audition as myself and just end up in a rom com. It really helps to marginalize people like me out of work, so I think that it’s really important that Jobsite cast a transgender actor in this role.
Why should readers see HIR?
It’s fucking hilarious. It crosses a whole bunch of lines and that’s almost what makes it funnier because of that audacity. It’s not comedy for comedy’s sake and it’s not just social commentary for the sake of getting up on a soap box. It’s all intentional, the absurdism and realism, you need both of them. It’s really funny but it also makes you think.
