It got me to thinking about an Italian operetta I saw downtown about a month ago in which some of the actors were men, some were women, but they were all dressed as women and played female roles. There wasn't much in terms of setting, like a specific place or time, and many of the scenes flowed in and out of dreams and memories. Even with all the cross-dressing going on, it would have been hard to label the characters as "transsexual" or "transgender," mainly because the abstract nature of the operetta prevented us from knowing too much (or really anything) in terms of how the characters lived or identified.

Anyway, I was surprised to see that sort of content in a show that wasn't directed at an LGBT audience - it was showing in one of the most chic theaters in downtown Paris. The high-brow theater set is known for brushing off pretty much anything that isn't heterosexual as "not universal." But then I realized that the saving grace was probably the fact that the cross-dressing was symbolic and abstract, making it "universal" in a way that straight/cis people can handle.

Sodomy and same-sex attraction are used in much the same way in Penetrator. I'd be the last person to try to set up some sort of filter for these sorts of events, but is buttsex the basic requirement for something being considered "gay"? Does "LGBT" art have to represent something recognizable as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, or transsexual in contemporary culture or does it just have to have some link to same-sex attraction or sex or men and women putting on the clothes of the opposite sex? If the artist is LGBT, is that enough? (I don't know about the writers of either of these plays.)

I'm not asking any of these questions because I have the answers, but because I do want to hear y'all's opinions.

Aside from those questions, Penetrator was interesting. It invokes some of the most cliché of clichés of British humor, and while it's generally not my thing, lots of other people in the theater laughed. The dialogue was sharp and Fabien Ducommun's performance as Alan was energetic and bold. It was a good time.