Listen to Shakina Nayfack s Play on Trans Sisterhood in Thailand February 19 2021 6:49 AM EST
Live theater is on hold for now, but thanks to Audible’s collaboration with the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Shakina Nayfack’s play,
, which features several transgender luminaries, is available for your listening pleasure.
The play was intended for an in-person premiere before live theater was sidelined with shelter-in-place orders last March. But the collaboration with Audible offers the thoughtful, uplifting piece a platform to reach an even wider audience. In it, Nayfack (
Transparent, Difficult People) tells the story of “a vibrant, international group of transgender women [who] band together at a hotel in Thailand to confront the challenges and joys of gender confirmation surgery,” according to the Audible Originals’ synopsis.
Credit Williamstown Theatre Festival
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. – It must be some sort of reviewer’s jinx that the play in a season you are most looking forward to experiencing is often the most disappointing.
Well, it struck again.
“Chonburi International Hotel & Butterfly Club,” the fourth play on the Williamstown Theatre Festival Audio season appeared to be a type of play that could inform, enlighten and entertain. In other words, it looked like the entire package.
Instead, it’s an uninterrupted hour and forty-four minutes of bits and pieces. It includes some very thoughtful and caring moments, but by including many wider-ranging political ideas it dilutes the emotional power of the piece.