Love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love, as Mr. Miranda said. And fighting about love, trying to figure out love, working on love, that’s the same for all of us, too.
Plot Points in Our Sexual Development, which opened tonight in the LCT3 series at Lincoln Center Theater’s tiny, elegant Claire Tow, is a intriguingly constructed, movingly written look at a very specific relationship, one between a cisgender lesbian and the masculine-presenting “genderqueer” trans person she loves. It’s deeply, almost shockingly frank, and it’s also deeply revelatory for anyone—which is to say everyone—who has ever tried to figure out themselves, their bodies, their feelings. It’s a wonderful reminder that in specificity, even unusual specificity, you find universal truths.
The play opens with its two characters, Theo (played by Jax Jackson) and Cecily (played by Marianne Rendón), seated in chairs on opposite sides of the stage, both looking at the audience. They speak alternatingly, addressing the audience, and, well, retelling the plot points in their sexual development.
Theo speaks of being told as a toddler that men have penises and women don’t, and proceeding to inform everyone at the grocery whether or not they had one. “Finally this old woman comes up to us, and I point to her and yell, ‘You don’t have a penis!’ And she looks at me and says, ‘Well, that’s an awfully bold assumption.’”
Cecily recalls the jockey statue in her aunt and uncle’s front yard, with whom she became so obsessed that her uncle thought it would be funny to stage a fake wedding. “I don’t recall us ever getting divorced,” she muses. “So—huh—I’m a married woman.”
The go back and forth, telling different stories, each one painstakingly, precisely constructed. They’re sweet, they’re funny, they’re profound. They get somewhat more intense. They are the kinds of experiences all children have—but rarely speak of. There are hints that these people will grow up to be queer, but, still, the stories are universal.
Then the setting shifts, slightly. Theo and Cecily rotate their chairs, so that they’re now looking at each other. They’re in therapy, you realize; or maybe just having an intense conversation. They continue exchanging stories, and the stories become more consequential. They’re about coming out, about body image, about gender expression. They’re why these two people are who they are.
And then another shift. Theo and Cecily are now interacting with each other, pacing a living room. They’re a couple, and they’re fighting. And they’re fighting over some pretty profound things—not just who did the dishes or who forgot a birthday, but who they are. It’s a conversation most of us don’t have to have, but it still resonates. Loving someone, revealing yourself, revealing yourself and potentially being rejected for it, that’s hard—for everyone.
I won’t reveal the ending, mostly because I don’t want to ruin the play’s mystery and suspense. But the play remains thought-provoking and lovely through its final moments. That is a tribute to all involved. The transition from alternating monologues to interactive scenes isn’t entirely successful; the playwriting feels somewhat more slack once we’re in just another living room, even with these atypical people in it. But only somewhat so. The play clocks in at 55 minutes; none of that time feels wasted, nor does the play feel overly compact. It does what it needs to do, and then it wraps up.
In fact, everything about Plot Points is precise. Jackson and Rendón give fine, disciplined performances. The script, by Miranda Rose Hall, is carefully balanced and slowly unpacks its secrets. Her structure is precise, and so is her wording. Even the jokes build carefully and land precisely. Margot Bordelon’s direction sharpens this effect, as does Andrew Boyce’s spare set and Jiyoun Chang’s precise lighting.
This is a smart, well-made play that is very much of its time, a look at the brave new world of gender nonconformity, and a reminder that, really, we’re all the same. Or given how our times are changing, is it still of its time? The morning after the preview I attended, I woke up to learn that Trump is trying to define trans people out of existence.
Plot Points in Our Sexual Development opened Oct. 22, 2018, and runs through Nov. 18 at the Claire Tow Theater. Tickets and information: lct3.org
