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