Barnstorm Theatre

Scripted from emails and interviews,

The Big Deal

is a documentary theatre piece from director Una McKevitt, which presents the stories of two real-life women, Cathy and Deborah, who were born as men. The narrative charts their journey from self-realisation to physical transformation, and their voices are resolutely honest about the spiritual and corporeal trauma of their conditions; their rejection by family and friends, and the intense pain of gender reassignment surgery.

The Big Dealoffers a refreshing diversity of experience. For Deborah, life before surgery was a sham; her relationship with her family was predicated on hiding her real self and her journey before surgery is one of self-acceptance.

For Cathy, however, Cathy/Patrick “were the same person”; undergoing surgery is less transformation than an embracing of her true nature. The women make some incredibly moving revelations as they narrate their experiences, in particular Cathy’s heartbreak at losing her wife Ellen as she moves to fulfil her biological destiny. The women’s friendship is also a crucial, life-affirming theme.

Actors Úna Kavanagh and Shani Williams bring Cathy and Deborah to life with natural charm, using the intermittent soundtrack to embrace a new comfortable relationship with their bodies, now that their identities match their physical being.

However, in presenting the material, McKevitt makes no attempt to juxtapose Cathy and Deborah’s experiences to create a greater sense of conflict or urgency, nor to theatricalise their voices or raise questions about their perspectives or society’s attitudes to the transgendered community.

This means The Big Dealadmirably avoids sensationalising real-life experience, but it also means that it remains more documentary than dramatic; a mere act of bearing witness rather than an exploration of the greater significance of Cathy and Deborah's stories.