Horsegirl & Cowdaddy

(Photo credit to Johanna Austin.)

Horsegirl & Cowdaddy starts out right by having a super interesting title.  When I first saw it, I was incredibly intrigued.  You don’t get much from it outright.  Just these two words that could mean absolutely anything.  But then we start to move forward a little…a trans woman in her thirties and her father living in rural Pennsylvania.  Well, I guess that’s a little more to go off of, but what I really love is that I still didn’t have much of an idea going in.  I had read some, and I knew some of the vaguer plot points, but I didn’t fully know where to begin.

As a trans non-binary person, I get excited to see any sort of representation anywhere…especially on stage, as it’s the medium I love the most.  In a way, the world is growing when it comes to those things, but we still have a long way to go.  But in Horsegirl & Cowdaddy, we get more than I could have hoped for.  Not only is Horsegirl trans, her first love (and third character in this show), Bethel, is trans non-binary.  They use they/them pronouns!  And one of my favorite things is that there’s nothing weird about any of that.  Cowdaddy works to figure out Bethel’s pronouns, but he’s actively trying.  And he certainly doesn’t see Horsegirl as anything but his daughter.

That was one of the parts of Horsegirl & Cowdaddy that really brought up a lot for me.  All of these issues…aren’t issues.  Cowdaddy has always accepted that his daughter is his daughter.  He loves her as his daughter.  We live in a world where people tend to make a fuss of these things.  Cowdaddy may struggle with Bethel’s pronouns, but he doesn’t care that’s how Bethel identifies…all he cares about is Bethel treating Horsegirl right.  Cowdaddy loves his daughter more than anything else in the world, and just wants her to be happy.  And he’s always going to be afraid of what could happen to her.

We see gender roles being played with throughout this play.  I think that sort of comes along with having two trans main characters.  But one of the most interesting parts to me is that Cowdaddy, who is a pretty typical “man”, has sort of taken on both father and mother roles since Horsegirl’s mother left.  I don’t think he realizes this.  I don’t think he realizes everything semi-maternal that he does for Horsegirl.  He just wants the best for her.  Of course, we also see where Horsegirl and Bethel fall with their gender roles.  Honestly, I think those are the most normal ones in the whole show.

A part of being a bit troubled, and as along with where they sit on the gender spectrum, Bethel was sort of emotionally stunted.  They had travelled their whole life, but never had with their parents what Horsegirl has with Cowdaddy.  I think that’s why they take on a lot of what they do with Horsegirl.  Between dominant roles when it comes to sex, and how forceful they can be, I feel like Bethel has more typical “masculinity” in them than we would first be led to think.  But I do think them and Horsegirl have the spark of a first love.  Of course, it also proves that there are some humps that just can’t be gotten over.

Something absolutely beautiful in Horsegirl & Cowdaddy were the surreal moments we got.  I’m going to start with the little stuff, like a cowboy hat dropping from above for Cowdaddy.  It was a bit bizarre.  But I think most of the surrealism, which I really loved were the more sexual scenes between Horsegirl and Bethel.  There was a sort of base to them, as the two of them had a sort of fetish going on, but they were beautifully staged.  I don’t want to say too much about the scenes, as I don’t want to ruin it for people, but I was so incredibly awed by the intimacy choreographing.  It made the whole thing become a perfectly normal thing to be happening, even if it was a bit beyond the realms of a “normal” sexual relationship.  I mentioned the surreal moments…I felt like most of the sexual scenes were staged that way, and it was absolute perfection.

So much of Horsegirl & Cowdaddy revolved around being wild and free.  Cowdaddy is trapped by his life and personality, but he’s happy with where he is.  Bethel has never really had a home, but they’ve never really been free, either.  But Horsegirl?  She is absolutely wild and free.  I guess this is a lot of where the idea of horses comes into play.  We see Horsegirl’s love of them from the start of the show.  She wants to emulate them in a way.  I don’t think she realizes how much she already does.

I’ve been waiting a long time to see this show, and it definitely did not disappoint.  I was wide eyed the whole show.  I got goosebumps all up my arms.  These three characters could not be more different, but they worked together in harmony.  The acting was mind blowing.  The set was simple and beautiful.  Everything really came together for Horsegirl & Cowdaddy, in a way that was probably pretty hard, but looked seamlessly easy.  I think that was the beauty of the whole thing, and it was done flawlessly.