What do you get when you combine gender identity, sexuality, environmental issues, and ancient Greek history? Why, Hurricane Diane, of course. I know, going in, that this sounds a bit crazy. And obviously, it is. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get an amazing play out of it. And Hurricane Diane, although it hit a lot of very strange points and combined a lot that you wouldn’t expect to go together, was definitely a pretty amazing play. Now, let me tell you, one of my biggest passions after theatre is Greco-Roman mythology. So you tell me about a play that includes a Greek God and I am in. Especially if it takes place in a modern setting.
I think there are a lot of different ways to approach something like this. You really need to find the balance between all of these very mismatched concepts. Combining the ancient and the modern is hard enough (it’s become pretty popular, just check out series’ like Percy Jackson and the Olympians). But in Hurricane Diane, there’s so much more than just the simple idea of ancient and modern. Hell, we’re seeing Dionysus as a butch lesbian landscaper. From the very start, we’re seeing something very unique. But I think it’s a perfect idea. Because if any God is going to disguise themself like that, it’s Dionysus.
A little background into why I feel this way (sorry in advance, I was a religion and classics major in college and the Mystery Cults were my area of interest). Dionysus had a following of women, the cult of Dionysus. The cult existed for a long time in the ancient world, where women would work themselves into a frenzy, and they had festivals dedicated to Dionysus. So disguising himself as a lesbian is a pretty damn good idea to gain those followers- which is exactly what Dionysus tells us they want at the beginning of the play.
So there’s our first checkmark, the idea of playing with gender. I’m totally into this whole thing, as a non-binary person myself. I love that we’re getting more attention. Of course, when they said the term “gender nonconforming” on stage, the woman next to me turned to the woman beside her and just sort of scoffed, “Gender nonconforming.” Not cool. We’re out there. We’re seeing one of them onstage…the person playing Diane uses they/them pronouns. They were badass. And they really brought this character out. I couldn’t blink watching them.
Hurricane Diane takes place in modern times, in a neighborhood where every house is the same. The characters other than Diane are four typical suburban women, or so it seems, and they’re all in different situations. Carol wants everything to be perfect. She clips out of HGTV magazine religiously, and is stubborn as hell when it comes to change. Beth has recently been left by her husband and is not dealing with it well. Renee is an editor for HGTV magazine, but has very different dreams and ideals. Pam is a little wild, but also a little paranoid. These four women make up the “girls”, and they’re the ones Diane wants to turn into her following.
One by one, we watch Diane find her way with each of these women. It’s so beautiful, the way the play is written and the way we see Diane act. She knows exactly how to seduce each woman, bringing them into her fold. Renee has had experience being with a woman in the past, but none of the other women had. Diane gathers them up regardless, ensnaring each woman, getting around their ideas of sexuality and being a perfect suburban wife.
Diane works her way into these women’s lives simply as a landscaper. That’s how she starts…she gives these women what they want in their yards. Renee wants permaculture- “a kind of garden that mimics a natural ecosystem”. She wants to go back to her time before being a suburban wife. And just as Diane excitedly gives her this, she also fulfills Beth and Pam’s lawn dreams. But Carol stands stubbornly still against Diane’s work. Diane gathers the other three women, but she can’t gather Carol.
Watching this idea of fluid sexuality play out was so wonderfully done. There are so many blurred lines, and you can’t say these women are sleeping with a woman or a man. Honestly, I don’t think it even matters. When you’re looking at a God figure, who’s to say what gender is being presented. In a way, these women were having sex with both a man and a woman, and yet neither at all. I think this was kind of risky for my area, honestly, though I’m also not sure a lot of people properly processed this.
The end of the show was pretty dynamic. A hurricane hits the neighborhood, Renee, Beth and Pam are completely enthralled by Diane, now more clearly Dionysus. And yet, in the storm, in the chaos, Carol refuses to give into Diane. What she really represents is the stark, neutral life in a house like every house around it in a cul-de-sac.
Sometimes things can be contained. Sometimes they can’t be contained. And that’s a lot of what I took away from Hurricane Diane. The world has changed in the thousands of years since Dionysus had any jurisdiction in the world of humans. Diane just wanted to bring back the lush greenery, the beautiful environment she had loved when she was Dionysus. But the world has changed since then. Hurricane Diane really showed us this. I like to think there’s still a piece of that in all of us, though. Dionysus was the God of madness as well. Maybe that’s some true food for thought.
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