A mono­logue of self dis­cov­ery from a gender­queer, kinky, femme­sexu­al, poly­m­inded, gay-divor­cee.

From the open­ing sequence through to the end, this well con­struc­ted show ful­fills the pro­gramme prom­ise that “by the end of this show you will know more about me than most people care to learn and hope­fully some­thing about your­self.” Through sev­en pivotal life events per­former Ren (as Michelle/Ryan) is charm­ingly and heart­break­ingly open about the ongo­ing evol­u­tion of their iden­tity. Clothes, edu­ca­tion, sex, rela­tion­ships, sex – noth­ing is left out of this storytelling event. Some things are described with music­al instru­ments, some with props but mostly it is Ren alone on the stage with only their express­ive voice and body to illus­trate the story. Their story will res­on­ate with any­one who has an iden­tity dif­fer­ent to the one they (or their fam­ily) thought they’d have.

Ze is a con­front­a­tion of the labels soci­ety has con­struc­ted for us as well as a remind­er and a call to par­ti­cip­ate in the rain­bow com­munity that we, as diverse people, are already a part of. To be vis­ible dur­ing Wel­ling­ton Pride in order to cel­eb­rate our authen­t­ic selves. Tau­toko.

AND pre­view Ren’s new show