Boobs. Selina Jenkins.
The
Quartet Bar. Adelaide Cabaret Bar Adelaide Festival Centre, June 18-20 2021.
Reviewed by Peter Wilkins
As Selina Jenkins took her bow at
the end of her highly personal and deeply thought-provoking show about body
image, gender and the right to determine control of one’s choices, I kept
thinking that Jenkins’s sensitively presented performance should be shown to
students in senior schools. This is the time that many are struggling with
gender identity, sexuality and their place in the world. It is a time of
confusion and frustration as well as hope and dreams and the need to be
oneself.
Jenkins provides a voice that is
reasoned, empathetic and encouraging, born of her desire to have elective surgery
to remove her breasts. Boobs is her
account of the journey she took to realize her dream, and the problems she had
to overcome to achieve her goal. Alone on stage, Jenkins regales her experience
with self-effacing humour, superb singing with guitar accompaniment that
surprises with its range and control, and an easy, honest engagement with her
audience. The show is structured on the absorbing account of her time in
Florida where she went to have the surgery, because nobody would do it in
Australia. A conversation with the voiceover of the surgeon responsible for
signing off on the operation reveals the inability of the surgeon to grasp the
fact that Jenkins merely wanted to remove her breasts with no desire to
transition to a male gender. The absurdity of the male prerogative to decide to
grant permission on the basis of liking a person strips away Jenkins’s autonomy
to decide for herself how she will control the choices she makes about what ro do with
her body.
Jenkins is fortunate. She has the
love and support of her sisgender, and partner Amy who travelled with her to
Florida where the metaphorical hurricane of going through the procedure of
securing permission was matched by the Category 3 hurricane that struck their
hotel. Jenkins’s captivating ability as
a storyteller and comedian comes to the fore as she describes the hunt for the
missing nipple. Her timing is excellent as she segues with simple ease from
anecdote to song to the concluding moral of her one hour performance. “Lead
with your heart” Jenkins tells the audience. “Remember that other people are as
vulnerable and they have an important story to tell”
Finally in a plea for
understanding and compassion, Jenkins reminds her audience that “your
resistance can ruin ours” It is a cry for unity and tolerance. With humour,
song and honest storytelling, Selina Jenkins sings a song of experience that
echoes through the heart and opens the mind.
