'Snapshots'

Campbell Lauder draws parallels between transgenderism and stammering, in his own life and in a play produced in Edinburgh last summer.

Tam Wilkinson on acting in 'Snapshots' 1. What is it like acting when you have a stammer? At first, I felt it was really nerve racking to speak in front of people I don't know, but once I got into the character that kind of faded. Besides, I felt my fellow cast members, some of whom were professional actors, were feeling just as nervous as me. 2. What challenges did you face while acting? The fact that my one character with a speaking role had a stammer. My only real problem though was pronunciation and projection of my voice. One thing which did surprise me was that in some performances I felt I wasn't stammering enough for the character, so ended up using some voluntary stammering. 3. What experience(s) sticks in your mind the most? The opening performance of the second run where I was about to go on stage and my mind went blank. Once on stage I started to remember an older version of the script! 4. What do you feel about working with Paradoxical Ink and on 'Snapshots' as a whole? I got involved to gain some confidence and to use my creative side that I rarely do. I think working with Paradoxical Ink has been a great experience, reminding me of a side of my personality that I rarely let come across.

I recently wrote, produced and acted in a stage play called 'Snapshots', a small-scale show that was performed during July/August 2010 as an off-Fringe production.

It was staged by a new theatre company called Paradoxical Ink that myself and a few like-minded friends, Marilyn Blyth Wilson, Tam Wilkinson, Katherine Maxwell, and david a. roberts of the theatre company edgeeradica formed after a successful trial run of a few short scenes during the spring.

'Snapshots' is mostly about stammering and transgenderism, and these themes are also aspects of my own life. Writing the play was a gradual process, starting in early 2006 through to the actual production in Edinburgh in summer 2010. Throughout this time, I struggled with my own identity both as cross dresser and someone that stammers, so I got involved with The British Stammering Association Scotland (and their 2007-2008 'Outspoken' drama workshops), and with transgender rights activism.

Social stigma

As I wrote about these topics and became more involved in both these communities, I was struck by how closely related these two very different aspects of my life were: I found out around the age of five or six, that I had a stammer and felt comfortable in female clothes. As I grew older, I found out what a stigma they both are in society, when they are just normal everyday facets of human nature. I also was in denial of them both for a very long time - telling myself I was going through a phase on both counts. Eventually, I had to admit to myself that I cross dress, and that I will probably always have a stammer, so I had better make the most of them, and be open about them.

With each performance of 'Snapshots', we grew stronger as a cast and crew, as did the audience numbers, and their feedback. All this would not have been possible without the invaluable following additional cast and crew members: Daniel Murray, Rachel Walker, Iain MacLean, Edward Ellis, Steven R. Smith and Jamie Griffin. So much so that we were offered some support to tour 'Snapshots' around a few small Scottish LGBT venues as part of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgendered History Month in February 2011, and we recently received an invitation to use a regular Edinburgh venue to perform our work.

We will be extending and reworking the show, and creating new pieces, for which additional cast and crew members will be needed. If anyone is interested in being part of the team: email me Campbell Lauder at paradoxical.ink@hotmail.co.uk

The experience for everyone involved in 'Snapshots' was an exhilarating one and proved, especially for the stammering members among us, that we could perform in front of an audience and do so with self-assurance. In the longer term, we do not wish to revolve our work solely around stammering or transgenderism, but we hope to address similarly unjustifiably taboo matter and situations - situations analogous to my own - or anyone else's, as we are all outsiders at some point.

The whole process of 'Snapshots' taught me that the true common ground between people lies in our differences, not our commonalities and that a leap of faith and imagination is all that is needed to see the parallels.

www.paradoxical-ink.co.uk

From the Winter 2010 issue of Speaking Out, page 13