I arrived at the Basement Theatre on the night of Thursday 13 February burnt out in every sense of the word. I had stacked extra shifts of work between writing, tutoring and the inconsequential but necessary day-to-day tasks of laundry and dishes and it had wound up being an unusually busy week. Grabbing a box of kūmara fries from the Burgerfuel on Queen Street, I walked around the back of Aotea Square toward the theatre and into a sky turning coral. Following this corridor of sunset right up to the entry of Basement, it’s only later that it occured to me as being the perfect prologue to watching Redwood’s show. The Earth ready and in tandem with Redwood’s performance, as they too seemingly always ready, and in tandem with the Earth.
I enter the theatre to the soft hum of forest sounds. I am transported to another place, a stillness that reminds me of the forests and kererū of my hometown. Redwood steps onto the stage with a tranquility that bleeds out across the crowd.
I have seen spoken word poetry before, but this one-person show, this experience of words, ecology, and as Redwood articulates, “personal archeology”, is like travelling across dimensions. A collection of ten poems written throughout the artist’s life—from adolescence to recent work that Redwood read from their recently penned page—weave a story of the body, of queerness, and of the interconnectedness of people, time and the natural world.
Redwood is sincere and honest in their words, their exploration of queer identity and the body; at once honest and intimate, but also hilarious. There is something tender about how easily Redwood drew me to tears, and then seconds later had me laughing out loud.
As a queer trans person myself, seeing queer stories told in such an authentic way feels grounding to me; I am tethered to these stories, to our stories. I am grateful for the candid and completeness of how they are told. I am broken by the loneliness woven into the self-discovery of coming into one’s queerness. In their cheese cutter hat, Redwood remarks of the first time they found a suit, second hand, of wearing it and realising their transness. The visceral and often slow coming into oneself as a trans individual is captured so beautifully in Redwood’s works.
They spoke too of first love, and of queer love. Of proving high school teachers wrong, of queer tragedy and queer beauty. They sang too, music riddled with queer jokes, the likes of which reminded me of those tiny corners of the internet where queer communities poke fun at our own stereotypes and commonalities. Redwood brings to the stage an experience I have only ever had before online. Laughing emojis turn to tangible giggles in the crowd, as Redwood remarks of falling in love with someone across an ocean (been there), and of being single and torturing themselves with a trip to the organic store.
This is why we need queer people to tell our queer stories. We speak the same language, we share commonalities and even stereotypes that we understand as a community, and that brings us closer, both in our pain and in our humour and joy.
Everything, for Redwood, draws back to the natural world. Redwood views nature and ecology with both a sense of childlike wonder and awe, and a deep philosophical wisdom. As they speak, as they sing, as their poems make me tender and make me laugh out loud, as the soft hum of forest sounds fills the spaces between words; it is like Redwood has brought the crowd together, rooting us into one through their words. Leaving the show I felt a part of something, a vital root in the mycelium network of queer stories and the natural world, something that I so often forget to tether myself to.
At its best and most visceral, performance poetry for me, is a physical experience, as much as it is a psychological one. I left Redwood’s show thinking of my own experiences as a queer trans person. Thinking of the importance of community and of telling queer stories.
On the bus home, the previously coral sky that had covered over the city of Tamaki had turned a marble black, pricked through with stars. I felt a stillness in the wake of Redwood’s performance and storytelling; whereas before I had rushed beneath the sky, this time I lingered beneath it—one with the cosmos, as Redwood had reminded us we were.
A week on from Redwood’s show, I still find myself reflecting on it. They spoke of putting their ear to the soil, stroking the earth in a moment of anguish. “The earth speaks beyond what my vocabulary can say”, they had poised. And maybe so, but still Redwood knits words into beautiful and tender tapestries, you leave feeling like you want to wrap yourself within them, and watch the stars.
