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Dating is scary. You put yourself out there, baring your insecurities, hoping against hope to find that rare someone who makes you feel loved and wanted. The risks of embarrassment, rejection and heartbreak are high, to the point where some avoid taking the plunge at all.
As Mikki Gillette frames it, dating while transgender can be even scarier. The same pitfalls exist but with the added fear of prejudice, bigotry or even violence. It’s a minefield externally and internally, and it’s an experience she invites audiences into with My Perfectly Valid Objections, a new play from Salt and Sage Productions, now playing at Oblique Coffee Roasters.
The show is presented as a series of vignettes showing a collection of first dates between young trans women (Ruby Welch and Juliet Mylan) and their prospective cisgender suitors (Heath Hyun Houghton and R. David Wyllie). They’re all awkward and uncomfortable, with the men behaving inappropriately despite their purported liberal bona fides. However, just as often, it’s the women who are their own worst enemy, as understandable insecurities and indecisions tend to bubble up and lead to panicked oversharing.
Despite the fears the women express, Objections is a comedy first and foremost and things never get too dark. The men are often ignorant and self-righteous, but rarely chauvinistic and never outright malicious. Gillette’s script never broaches the overly dramatic, instead inviting viewers to laugh at the little absurdities that make up courtship, including many that cis people may not even be aware of.
Staging the show in a coffee shop is an unconventional choice, but it’s one director Asae Dean uses to her advantage. Putting the audience on the same level as the action ends up bringing them closer to it. These are smaller, more intimate stories and it adds something to view them in a more intimate way.
The minimalism of the setup also means that the actors and script need to do all the heavy lifting to keep the audience engaged, and fortunately they’re all up to task. After some awkwardness in the first few scenarios, the players settled into their ever-shifting roles well, making each one distinct and comical without resorting to outright caricature. And while the script drags in the back half, Gillette demonstrates a keen ear for dialogue and a naturalistic sense of humor that keeps the audience engaged.
The final story in Objections reconnects with the same couple from the first vignette, showing them still together three years later. It demonstrates that despite the perils of dating and the very real threats to trans lives in the world, there is hope for a better tomorrow. Love is real and out there for everyone, so long as you’re willing to go through a lot of bullshit to find it.
SEE IT: My Perfectly Valid Objections plays at Oblique Coffee, 3039 SE Stark St., saltandsageproductions.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 6 pm Sunday, through Feb. 26. $15.