Es Morgan, Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see! at the Marlborough Theatre

Es Morgan, Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see!, Marlborough Theatre, Brighton, July 11

There is no space for wings on the tiny stage of the Marlborough Theatre so the entrance is from the audience up the steps at the front. Es Morgan is tall but when they step up on to the stage they dominate it like Leonardo’s renaissance man staked out inside a circle. Created by Morgan with dramaturgy by Charlie Ashwell, Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see! is part dance performance, part spoken word and part installation. It is also part of the Trans Pride season at the Marlborough Theatre which frames it more specifically within the trans/non-binary/intersex/gender genre. While this confines the performance to a familiar context, as an existential rant on current society Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see! has a relevance that goes beyond it. In this sense the reference of costumes and makeup to drag are less important than the broader societal issues of transgender Morgan proposes in each element of the performance.

After a brief spoken word introduction, they close their eyes and perform an exquisite long-limbed, existential dance that takes up the entire stage (without much difficulty) as if the space is a cage that their body constantly explores in a hesitant dialogue of boundaries. In its eloquently mute articulation Morgan’s body establishes an inner world of gender fluidity while speaking volumes about their sense of alienation and disquiet. At this point Mum! looks like a contemporary dance performance and four of the audience, possibly feeling short-changed by the lack of drag, walk out just as Morgan’s eyes open and the dance comes to a close. Slipping off their shoes and tracksuit pants to reveal a long silky dress, Morgan reclines in the red inflatable armchair with a bottle of water and a microphone. ‘Gender is a construction site; so many slow men…I’m just a slab of meat looking for something real,’ they quip as they begin a carefully constructed, sinuous monologue delivered in a languorous tone that hides its cynical bite. It’s like words passing through a hall of mirrors, reflecting distortions of desires and fears in a lurid, panopticon society, somewhere between ‘Nietzsche and nurture’ in ‘a post-capitalist wet dream’. At the end of the monologue they leave us with an image of a supine Saint Sebastian pierced by plastic straws before abandoning us to what sounds like musical water while they apply a demon/angel face makeup in front of their pop-up mirror.

We’re half way through the show and this is the moment we are asked to close our eyes and surrender to Morgan’s suggestive tones, part guru, part new wave hypnotist with mischievous overtones. ‘Relax, get comfortable…you might want to lean into the person next to you.’ They guide us through an out-of-body visualization down corridors with closed doors, carpeted rooms and cartoon characters on screens until we open our eyes and we’re back in the Marlborough with Morgan the ‘marmite me’ in a black unitard stretched over their torso with red crosses over their nipples, standing bare legged at the microphone atop platform heels. The existential takes on the sensual in Morgan’s breathless catalogue of social and political chaos (‘Fascism has such a strong smell…’) in which the world’s oceans overflow and the last white male rhino disappears; death is never far away. It comes in the form of a roll of pungent Speedman Paper Fill that Morgan pulls out of a box — all 450 metres of it — and lets fall around them like a crinoline that continues to rise until they are embalmed in loose packaging. After death come the reminiscences, a fond recap from the safety of another dimension — the fourth? the fifth? — of all that Morgan espouses in the mess of the present. ‘Do you remember when gender became obsolete?’, they ask. We are not there yet, even if we knew what the destination might look like, but in broaching the possibility with a mixture of introspection, irreverent humour and sharp social commentary, Mum, I’m in the fourth dimension, see! makes us feel we’re on the journey together.