A sensitive and funny play, disrupting our ideas of what ‘normal’ looks like 

My Dad Wears A Dress is a one-woman show in which Maria Telnikoff, writer and performer, takes us on a journey through her early life and what it looked like particularly in relation to her father who lives as a transgender woman. We are shown scenes ranging from Maria’s childhood to adolescence, posed as pivotal in her construction and understanding of gender and identity. These scenes are powerful, important, and all framed by a bus ride to school when Maria decides to open up to her best friend about her family. 

The stage is cleverly constructed, a school desk and chair take centre stage while on the back wall is a blackboard, upon which images of Maria at different ages are projected during the transitions between scenes. As the play progresses and Maria grows up, the changes in age are performed convincingly by Telnikoff who alters her voice, mannerisms and body languages accordingly. This is where Telnikoff excels, in her ability to shift from a young child writing a letter to Santa, to a teeneger crushing on Hugh Laurie. Quick and unexpected costume changes also take place in between scenes, which Maria proceeds to dispose of after in a bin covered with smiley face stickers. At points, Maria centres the plot back to her father, exploring the childlike frustration with a world obsessed with binaries. Angry at the extent to which Father’s Day is gendered, Maria sticks a string of cards on the wall, covered with bald men, beer, and cars. Then, during a French lesson at school, the teacher demands Maria creates a family tree. Distressed by the word ‘father’ being a male gendered word in the French language, Maria ends up standing on a chair and shouting out, “Elle est ma pere!”. 

Telnikoff’s confident and consistently energetic performance is impressive, however it fails to distract from the fact that her relationship with her father is barely touched upon. It is confusing whether the premise of the show (to explore growing up with a transgender dad) was actually achieved. Of course there were points in which we were reminded of Maria’s father’s existence and gender identity, however there was little development granted to their relationship or to her father’s actual experiences. One could argue the space was there for Telnikoff to perhaps have explored more deeply her father figure, instead of just returning to, and repeating the refrain, ‘my dad wears a dress’. Having said this, being autobiographical and therefore deeply personal, I am reluctant to ask for more from Telnikoff’s play. It is her story to tell and she did so sensitively and mindfully, but My Dad Wears a Dress does come across as a play centred more upon the process of coming-of-age and the difficulties we face as we mature. As a coming-of-age story, it succeeded, making for a play which was at times, acutely relatable and funny. Maria herself is at the centre of My Dad Wears a Dress, and it is through her that questions concerning what is considered ‘normal’, in terms of gender, identity, and family, are asked and grappled with.