There was an early moment in “Wakeman,” the developmental production at New London Barn Playhouse last Friday, when the protagonist broke into a smile as the ensemble lifted her and slipped her into a pair of soldiers’ trousers.
Her eyes sparkled, her expression somewhere between delight and disbelief, as though she couldn’t quite fathom what she’d just pulled off.
Disguised as a man, a teenage Sarah Rosetta Wakeman had enlisted in the Union army to fight in the Civil War and earn money for her family, impoverished farmers from New York.
Her story, which unfurled across two hours of explosive, gut-wrenching theater, was based on letters by the real-life Wakeman, who risked not only death on the battlefield, but imprisonment for masquerading as a man.
Written by songwriter and actor Jenn Grinels and directed by Billie Aken-Tyers, whose credits include associate director for Broadway’s “Titanique,” “Wakeman” is a story about many things: patriotism, reckoning with parental and societal expectations, the search for the self.
But what moved me so deeply about Friday’s show was how it worked as a trans person’s coming-of-age story — one that illustrated, with rousing folk-rock songs and impeccable performances, how much it cost Wakeman to be herself — and how much it can still cost trans and queer people today.
I left the Barn with a heavy heart, yet fortified by the knowledge that this story was out there, which is as much a testament to the cast and crew as it is to the Barn Playhouse for investing in new and ambitious work.
At the play’s outset, Wakeman, played by the spellbinding nonbinary actor Reese Cameron, is itching to escape the confines of life on the farm. She convinces her brother Robert (an adorable Rowan Box) to cut off her hair and lend her some clothes, assuring him that she’ll be home soon.
She quickly falls in with a group of canal workers before enlisting in the army, seduced by the $152 sign-up bonus.
Army life is tough, and the men can be mean. Still, it’s in uniform that Wakeman begins a metamorphosis, her body — her being — shifting to fit the contours of her new masculine identity, as if some part of her is waking up, stretching out. Increasingly, she signs letters to her parents with male versions of her name.
Cameron portrayed this process of becoming with mesmerizing physicality and zeal, most evident when the actor sang, arms outstretched, eyes wide, their voice crashing through the theater like a tidal wave.
Playing Wakeman for those four nights at the Barn had been momentous, Cameron told audience members at a talk-back after Friday’s show, as it’s rare for trans actors to be cast in lead roles, let alone find ones that reflect their own experience.
Wakeman’s choice to be herself — as much as her world allows her — also comes at a cost. She’s constantly in danger of being discovered, a risk that becomes all the more real when she encounters two women who also dressed as men to join the war, one of whom is serving jail time after being caught.
Powerhouses Jane Bruce, who played Sergeant Evans, and Brooke Simpson, who played the prisoner, brought a sobering depth to these women, providing a counterweight to Wakeman’s bright-eyed juvenility.
We see Wakeman at her most downtrodden, however, when she tries to connect with her parents. Their love is elusive, though Galyana Castillo and Eric Coles—Wakeman’s mother and father—show it rippling just under the skin. Nonetheless, it’s easy to understand why Wakeman might have turned to the open road as a respite from the oppressive loneliness at home.
Credit: Ridgelight Studio LLC
“Wakeman” has been in the works for almost a decade, but the leaders at New London Barn Playhouse discovered it just last year when managing director Elliott Cunningham saw a condensed version at the National Alliance for Musical Theatre’s Festival of New Musicals and immediately started making inquiries about staging the play at the Barn.
The cast and crew spent the past several weeks reworking the play through the Barn’s Nest program, a three-year-old initiative designed to support developing work.
Where “Wakeman” goes from here remains unclear, the play’s creative team said at Friday’s talk-back. They could keep workshopping it, or try to stage it at a larger theater. Either way, the road to Broadway is long and winding.
It was strange to think that such an electrifying production could suddenly stall. But regardless of what’s to come, the cast and crew accomplished a great feat on Friday.
In the talk-back, Grinels mentioned that because there was no language to describe trans or nonbinary identities in Wakeman’s era, “we can all find our own interpretation” of the play. That also means more people might attend “Wakeman” who wouldn’t necessarily buy tickets to an explicitly queer production.
Friday’s audience members were mainly white- and silver-haired, plus a handful of young people, one of whom had a sticker that said “Gay” stuck to their water bottle.
For a burgeoning production in New Hampshire, getting this mixed group through the door strikes me as a resounding accomplishment.