That crucial instruction to writers that they should “show not tell”, is even more evidently useful on the stage than on the page. It might be reworded as “embody not explain”. After all, so much can be seen not only as it is but also in the process of becoming different.
This makes Ann Yee’s production of Otherland an extraordinary 3D testimony, a valuable gathering of information and a finally unsatisfactory drama. Chris Bush, author of Standing at the Sky’s Edge, one of Sheffield Theatres’s biggest musical hits, has, without writing an autobiography, drawn on her experiences as a trans woman to produce a twofold story that examines the particular question of what people think it is to be a woman, and considers what is it to become other than your accustomed self.
