The deepest quality of the human condition, perhaps, is the desire to be accepted. To be loved for who you are – not just for your good parts, but also for your flaws, your mistakes, your insecurities, your struggles. For Violet Bardisa-Nickerson (Brenny O’Brien), the 12-year-old trans girl at the center of “Mermaid Hour,” that search for acceptance is heightened as she navigates her gender identity and her burgeoning sexuality alongside her relationship with her parents.
“Mermaid Hour,” from Moonbox Productions at Arrow Street Arts, is as much about Vi’s parents as it is about Vi. The play largely centers the journey of Pilar (Monica Risi) and Bird (Phil Tayler) journey to understanding how best to support their daughter: how to show up for her, how to do right by her and how to be the best parents they can be.
“It is a beautiful story that celebrates identity while at the same time asking questions of the parents – how do you do right by your kids? How do you make decisions that are best for them while at the same time keeping them safe?” director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary said.
Trans (and other LGBTQ+) stories have long gone untold, and bringing them to the forefront is an important and worthwhile venture. (The American Repertory Theater took a stab at it this year with its production of “Becoming a Man.”) “Mermaid Hour” is a noble pursuit by writer David Valdes and director Bridget Kathleen O’Leary, but could have been better executed.
The decision to emphasize the parents’ perspective in a coming-of-age narrative is a good one in that it felt fresh and different, but it also means we never really get to know Vi. The 16-year-old O’Brien’s acting is good: she plays Vi as a classic tween, heavy on the eye rolling and the door slamming, but there isn’t much depth to her character. We know she loves a YouTuber named Crux Dumay (Alex Goldman), a fellow trans person and social worker whose channel is the inspiration for the title; we know she has a crush on Jacob (Nicholas Papayoanou), her gay best friend; and we know she wants to be on hormone blockers, but that’s about all we get in terms of her characterization.
The central conflict of the play are those hormone blockers, medicines that prevent puberty by blocking hormones that would otherwise lead to puberty-related changes. Her parents are hesitant about how the blockers will affect her in the long run and are worried about financing it; the tension comes in part from Vi’s body being a bit of a ticking time bomb, with an urgency to start the medicine before the changes begin. Pilar and Bird, as a result, spend much of the play fighting, in a way that gets exhausting for the viewer and doesn’t feel entirely realistic given their mutual support of Vi and acceptance of her gender identity. By the end of the play, the repetitive bickering feels stale; it doesn’t do much except take up precious minutes of the 90-minute run time.
Pilar and Bird’s fighting is about the only part of “Mermaid Hour” that feels fully fleshed out, though. The rest of the plot points – Jacob’s (slightly transphobic) mother Mika (Clara Tan) finding Vi and Jacob fooling around one night in his room, Vi going viral on YouTube, Vi running away briefly from home before being returned by Crux – are either rushed through or not fully explored. The result is a narrative that feels half-baked, and sometimes hard to follow, because it moves in so many different directions without committing to any. Quiet microphones made some of the dialogue hard to hear, which didn’t help; that may have just been an opening night problem.
To be sure, there is a lot of goodness in this play, most importantly that it tells Vi’s story in a fair and empathetic way. There’s solid acting across the board, with an especially good performance by Risi (and O’Brien, for being 16). Deb Sullivan’s lighting is fabulously done, as is Kai Bohlman and Anna Drummond’s sound design. The best moment of the play is a monologue Tayler delivers in the second half, about his first time seeing Vi experience gender euphoria. Because Bird is the more reluctant parent of the two, hearing him appreciate the importance of gender affirmation was nothing short of beautiful. If the energy of that scene was reflected in the rest of the play, “Mermaid Hour” would’ve been an easy standout.
“Mermaid Hour” is overall a touching take on Vi’s trans experience and her parents’ valiant quest to do their best with her. There are sad and frustrating moments, such as Mika repeatedly misgendering Vi or Bird not wanting to pay for hormone blockers, but mostly, it’s joyous, proud and full of love.
- “Mermaid Hour,” by David Valdes and directed by Bridget Kathleen O’Leary. Presented by Moonbox Productions at Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow St., Harvard Square, Cambridge, through May 19.
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