Thirty-Six

Anna Sokolova
5 days ago
3 min read

Played at Qtopia Sydney, 8-18 July 2026

The review

“Thirty-Six” is a collaboration between two trans women: Scottish playwright and activist Jo Clifford, who lives on the other side of the planet, now in her seventies, and Melbourne's own Bayley Turner, who is in her thirties.

Tuner is a stunning solo performer, confident without a shadow of arrogance, smart, quick-witted, while her friend and co-writer is there in voice.

The play is set on Bayley’s 35th birthday, which is a Rubicon for a trans gender woman, because, as we’ve learned, thirty-six is their average life expectancy. Not scientifically confirmed, this number rises in the community as a shadow full of anxiety and fear. Here, the time of reaching this line is chosen as the beginning of an intimate conversation grounded on trust. The connection Bayley Turner set up in her foreword before the acting starts feels like a hug, an acceptance into a close circle, and she masterfully holds this feeling throughout the entire evening.

Bayley’s room has a desk covered by birthday cards with a makeup corner with a mirror on one end. There is a dressing corner where she, only teasingly hidden by tulle, swaps a bath towel for a statement dress with a pattern matching a beautiful parrot tattoo on her back. The stage is enlarged into a multidimensional space with semitransparent curtains and live video projections. A rich soundscape with songs and sounds accompanied the mood, and the use of two microphones to slightly modulate Bayley's voice when she picks up one, traveling on the stage, along with warm lighting, deepened the space even more.

The power of the text lies in the interconnection of two lives, valuing the years as a treasure, a blessing that pours wisdom without a hint of didactism into the play.

Two women are bound to each other by deep friendship, bridging generations, shaping and answering questions, sharing common experiences of transitioning.

The conversation fluently shifts between deeply touching personal stories, like one about returning that long-postponed call, but that is too late - surely everyone can relate, and all the way to existential matters of mortality. It talks about the trivial perceptions of womanhood and the big issues of realisation and belonging (“I was looking in the mirror at the boy and thought - it is not me… but then - who am I?!”. Bayley’s performance is strong and content, navigating her own narrative intertwined by dialogues with the voice of a physically distant intimate friend, and charmingly playing with the audience.

These two women earn respect for their inner power of honesty and sagacity, so not a sentiment returns to them, but a genuine desire to listen and relate. It goes along the following - from memory: “To become someone new, you need to die; and don’t you think you can avoid it. Transitioning is not about changing the gender, it is about changing the world”.

This work is a lament and endearments wrapped in sincere warmth. Talking soulfully about life and its finiteness, centered around transgender women, it gently but surely makes itself related to every human, elevating this compact independent theatre production to the heights of a profound and kind philosophical tale.