This is a beautiful show.
It’s an autobiographical sharing. We’re currently seeing a lot of this form on our stages. I’ve previously expressed curiosity that this major shift in our theatrical language seems to be going unnoticed. I don’t mean these sort of pieces aren’t getting positive responses. (Usually they do, and usually they should.) What I mean is that the common perspective on what’s happening in our theatres is partly erroneous. The popular position could be summed up like this: Until recently, only certain privileged groups have been permitted to tell their stories on our stages; other groups have not, and now it’s their turn. This is a perfectly valid historical statement, but it slips in, unnoticed as it were, the assumption that theatre is traditionally autobiographical.
Written and performed by Sheanna Parker Russon, No Love Songs For Lady Basses tells of her journey to accept she is a woman and how that has been received in the show business industry. Because that industry sees its role as storytelling, this show becomes, among other things, her story about her story. It’s this explicit awareness that makes the show insightful, wise and very funny.
Her conversations with a straight, middle-aged, cis male director are a comic delight – and only partly because he’s reduced to a sock puppet.
The songs are superb. Written by Lillian M. Hearne, they’re replete with gorgeous melodies. The lyrics by Parker Russon are both hilarious and moving. Accompanied by Hearne and Aisling Bermingham, Parker Russon’s performance of them is magical.
Director Cassie Hamilton helps Parker Russon navigate the whole fourth-wall-down-meta-theatricality of the thing in a way that allows humour and honesty to co-exist, and to nourish each other.
When Parker Russon speaks of the challenges facing the trans community you’d have to have a hard heart to feel we shouldn’t do better. But there’s a mindful paucity of rage. She gently jokes that her supposedly non-woke approach makes her more appealing to conservatives and the politically timid, but she’s right. Just as we’ve unconsciously come to assume theatre is autobiographical, we’ve come to assume anger equates with a commitment to change. It doesn’t. Anger is a perfectly understandable response to injustice, but it’s not the perfect tool for ending it.
The inner voice that tells Parker Russon she is a woman also tells her to be nice to herself. It’s indicative of the spirit that infuses this piece, a glorious generous-heartedness.
Paul Gilchrist
No Love Songs For Lady Basses by Sheanna Parker Russon
At Old Fitz, as a Late Show, until 16 June
Image by Jamie James
Theatre Red 
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