Women’s love in the spotlight

There are very few plays about lesbian love. “As a result, you rarely see lesbian characters on stage,” says Anna Podt. “And when you do, they are often stereotypes whose stories don’t end well. For example, the character is killed or rejected. But there are so many other, positive stories to tell about love between women!”

Collaborating with a queer publishing house

Collectief Pot, a collaboration of queer students from the School of Acting, wants to bring these stories to a wider audience. “Among other things, we have teamed up with Velvet Publishers, a queer publishing house in Amsterdam,” Anna explains. “Together, we adapt existing stories about lesbian love. For example, we turned De derde vrouw by Natalie Clifford Barney into a theatre script. We use it for staged readings.”

Theatricalizing stories of lesbian love

Anna had wanted to bring stories about lesbian women to the stage for some time. But a few years ago, she wasn’t quite sure how. “Before I went to the School of Acting, I did a bachelor’s degree in Sociology. That gave me quite a lot of theoretical knowledge about social issues such as gender and sexuality. These are themes that I also feel a genuine connection with as a queer woman.”

During her training, Anna learned how to theatricalize her anger, fear, and desire surrounding these themes. “During a project in my second year, I played an angel whose role was to protect outcasts. That was the first time I felt that, as a person, I could connect with the material I was performing.”

She continues: “During my third year, I realized in my independent work that I could use my skills as a performer and maker to give the concerns that had previously only been wandering around in my head a place on stage. Thanks to the tools I acquired at the School of Acting, I gradually learned how to translate my social engagement into theatre.”

Sappholympics

Anna’s graduation performance, Sappholympics, which she created with Collectief JOCH, is about a TV show hosted by two women. “They show the world as it could be without stereotypical binary norms. Queer heroes from history are featured, for example. As are personal stories, such as what it was like to grow up as a lesbian in a small village.”

She continues: “As the programme progresses, the performers are increasingly interrupted by the producer. At first subtly, but eventually this man almost takes over the entire show.”

With the performance, Anna wants to show “that the stories of people who fall outside the norm are still being gatekept by the patriarchal system,” as she puts it. “Those are big words. What we really want to make clear is this: it is usually men who decide what we, as viewers, get to see. On stage, but also online and on television. And they are often not particularly interested in the representation of queer women.”

Making and keeping queer stories visible

The response to the performance has been positive. “People find it funny and accessible. We hear a lot of comments from people recognizing themselves in it. At the same time, some audience members also say, ‘It’s actually quite bizarre that other people get to decide whether or not these stories are shown.’ And that’s exactly how it is.”

In the future, Anna wants to continue working to ensure that queer people and perspectives remain visible. “We live in a frightening time, in which, for example, trans people in the US are being ‘erased’. I will continue to resist these tendencies by telling as many queer stories as possible. As a performer, but also as a maker, I am particularly committed to lesbian representation. This will always be a pillar of my work as a creator. Even if I make a story about a space journey, I’ll make sure that two female astronauts are in a relationship.”

Anna hopes that people will enjoy watching these stories. But she also hopes they will inspire people to take action. “So, that viewers stand up for queer people and speak out against discrimination, for example. That is incredibly important.”

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