Wet Mess does ‘gender dysphoria’ AND split beavers. Brave and stunning!
The blurby bit
Interestingly, the blurb below for TESTO misses out the fact that it’s about the trans-identified female experience of taking exogenous testosterone. Now, why would the Southbank do that? At least it had an age-guidance of 18+ though.
About Wet Mess
Wet Mess is a trans-identified female, who, according to this Guardian interview, grew up The Fens, uses they/them pronouns and the name Wet Mess both on- and off-stage. She studied the history of art at Edinburgh Art College before moving to London in 2015 to work as a go-go dancer and began her career performing drag then. Although her latest show, TESTO, is all about testosterone abuse and features interview clips from women on the drug, she declined to reveal to the Guardian if she herself is a user. Based on her current non-bearded, still very feminine appearance, there’s not much of a mystery about this, and, as a friend always points out, transitioning is just for the oiks.
Having come across Wet Mess before, I know that her real name is Olivia Norris. Interesting that she has now ditched that in favour of being called Wet Mess full time. ‘Wet Mess, come and get your dinner now,’ I imagine her mum calling. Does she really introduce herself like this? Amazing. I first came across in her a video called Sissy Fatigue, the basic plot line of which is predatory behaviour towards a pubertal boy and really quite disturbing. That said, she is clearly a talented dancer.
So now, with the help of artistes like Travis Alabanza, who is very believably credited as dramaturg for TESTO (ponce), she has made an hour long show. That perhaps explains why the ticket for this unknown performer was a whopping £32. They certainly know how to pay themselves, these people.
The room
The performance was pretty much sold out and the crowd rowdy. In fact, it was so ragtag, it took an age to get into the hall, presumably because people struggled to find tickets on phones. Inside it was a club atmosphere of smoke, lights and deafening music. Midway one experienced a rare but very severe episode of vicarious embarrassment upon noticing the stony faces of the black ushers. I could see them literally thinking; ‘What’s wrong with these damn whiteys?’ Answer: Everything.
The review
‘You were sat in a chair‘
It began slowly and dramatically – whisperings as bittersweet music played, an LED monitor describing a dream to us in second person – you know, as if it were a video game, e.g. ‘you’re in a room, there’s something in the corner of the room.’ Likely inspired by the work of Danielle Braithwaite Shirley, I think. This did build-up quite a bit of tension, quickly ruined once a ‘yellow butter’ orgy was described to us. Urghh. Later, there were huge latex penises, like monster worms, that Wet Mess dragged around the stage, sometimes petting them, sometimes beating them, or else delicately placing a hat, or a pencil-case sized tiny handbag (copies of which were on sale in the foyer – real Wet Mess merch, no less). This was ‘humour’ and some (women) giggled but it felt childish and off to me. The most desperate bit though was when Wet Mess laboriously took off her male prosthetic latex chest and, while it hung off her head, held a forward bend. For the longest time. How utterly tedious.
Split beaver section
Although there were real flashes of brilliance when Wet Mess got round to some dancing, on the whole, the performance was too slow, too self-involved and – crucially – lacking in any internal logic. (Further proof that Travis really was responsible for the dramaturg.) For example, how can anyone buy into an underlying theme of gender dysphoria, needing to be fixed by testosterone, when the performer does split beavers with queer abandon? I mean, I get it, Wet Mess wanted to be a wet mess, but zealously flashing us her beaver had the unfortunate effect of reminding us so much of ‘gender dysphoria’ is performative bullshit.
Unseen talking heads and their gender euphoria
As is ‘gender euphoria’, since the audio clips of the trans-identified female interviewees were supposed to illustrate how amazing and life transforming testosterone is. As I’ve said, Wet Mess clearly isn’t on ‘T’, so this added an extra layer of artificiality to the proceedings (well done Travis), as she voice synced, word for word, what these women said. As always, the observations were revealing, despite their inanity.
- Testosterone increases sex drive, one reported needing ‘to wank’ three times a day.
- Testosterone gives you more muscle.
- Testosterone makes you smell like a tomcat. Which is cool in public places, like the bus, because women ‘swoon’ at the pissy smell. Erm, anyone?
- Having a very long hair suddenly grow out of the nose and other unimpressive facial hair growth.
- One drug abuser found her feet grew and she needed to take a shoe size a half size bigger (i.e. the sort of size change one might find between brands or style of shoe).
- Worrying about going bald – shave now, or wait until it happens?
- ‘Junk changing fast’ (i.e. enlargement of the clitoris).
- Having a male appearance can be dangerous as one TIF got punched by a man, because he thought he was punching another man. Eek!
- Having a positive emotional experience holding onto a handrail on an almost full bus. The upper handrail, mind. Felt like she ‘owned the space’, she did. Good grief.
- One came out as a lesbian to her mother, who had said it was fine but warned her ‘whatever you do, don’t become a man.’ Cue faux outrage that mum should say anything so awful to her, whilst clearly sounding pleased that mum did. You can always rely on a terf, eh?
- Some nonsense about being blown about in the wind, repeated umpteen times. Yeah, we’ve all experienced that, so what? Fuck all to do with testosterone.
- ‘I need to live. What else is there?’ opined the last voice, closing the show, in an oblique reference to suicide. Wah-wah-wah.
Another thing about these unseen talking heads, they were all instantly recognisable as female. One or two sounded like their voices had been affected by testosterone but only to the extent that they were in a slightly lower register. I suspect if we’d had visuals, things may have been more ‘impressive’, but from hearing them they sounded shrill, hesitant and not like men at all. So much for passing.
Free Palestine!
At the end, the rabble gave Wet Mess a standing ovation and she came back out sporting a pair of socks; ‘Free’ was on one, and ‘Palestine’ the other. This too was met with a roar of approval. How very Southbank. I guess it must be Wet Mess’s sincere hope that they one day get to do their split beavers in front of an enthusiastic crowd of adoring Gazans?
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The Lies They Tell 