From lesbian book club to graduation performance about a queer princess

Laura explains that, growing up, she missed seeing lesbian stories. She rarely saw characters on television she could identify with. “Until, at one point, a lesbian character appeared in the series Grey’s Anatomy. She was a woman I immediately recognised myself in. Everything suddenly fell into place,” she says.

As Laura grew older, she became increasingly aware of how important it is for lesbian women to be represented in film, on television and on stage. But once she started at the School of Acting, there was hardly any attention paid to queer female characters. “I found that strange. So did the head of the programme. He encouraged me to research women’s love in theatrical repertoire. This led to the establishment of the Lesbian Book Club.”

The five students in the book club were given a budget by the programme, “so that the media library could purchase plays for us,” Laura explains. The selection, however, proved rather limited. “There is more attention to lesbian characters in 19th- and 20th-century French and English-language theatre repertoire than in Dutch plays. But women’s love is often portrayed rather stereotypically. And as a problem, rather than as a form of love.”

The Lesbian Book Club believes this needs to change. “I long for a society in which different love stories can be and are allowed to be universal love stories. And in which being a lesbian is not problematised, but recognised,” says Laura.

She would like people to be presented with a broader and more diverse range of lesbian love stories. “However, we still live in a heteronormative society. Fortunately, there have been positive developments in the 21st century. For example, theatre-makers are drawing on their own experiences to write new queer repertoire. This creates new forms of recognition on stage. But there is still so much more that can be done, and done better.”

Laura feels a strong drive to play lesbian characters herself. “At the School of Acting, I discovered that I enjoy giving a platform to voices that are not heard enough in society. I also learned that I am the connecting factor between myself and the material I work with. That means I can really act as an ‘advocate for my character’.”

In particular, she learned from actor Mandela Wee Wee, who mentored her during her third year, how to make a character her own, she recalls. “That was partly because we really clicked. But also because he used a lot of sports metaphors, such as: ‘Acting is a team sport.’ When I was younger, I played handball at a high level. I probably understood what he meant so well because of that, haha.

Together with Renee Pinksterboer, a Creative Writing student, Laura created her solo graduation performance De dag dat niemand kwam. “It is about a lesbian princess who looks back longingly on her ex-girlfriend. She keeps hoping that things will work out between them, just like in fairy tales. But what if they don’t?”

Laura’s interest in themes such as ‘the fear of growing up’ and ‘how quickly time passes’ also feature in the performance. So does her love of physical acting and physical transformation. “The princess is who she is because of her costume, and because of the facial expressions and movements I give her.”

Laura has received a lot of positive feedback on her graduation performance: “People like the fact that I portray a queer character. The performance also makes them reflect. Some people have suggested that I adapt the piece for children as well. I’m definitely going to do that. I think it’s important to show that, hey, a princess with a princess is perfectly possible too!”

Laura emphasises that she did not become an actor solely to play lesbian characters. “But I do want to continue making women’s love visible in the future, for example by playing a lesbian character in a television series with a large audience. So that children today can see that two girls can simply fall in love with each other too.”

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This story is part of the series ‘Young creatives working towards greater queer representation’.