Content note: This article contains discussion of transphobia

Burgerz by Travis Alabanza is a theatre piece that has been on my mind ever since seeing it this year at the Edinburgh Fringe. The piece, which focuses on the reality of being a trans person of colour in the UK, is a striking and profoundly unusual theatre experience.

Burgerz is named in reference to a transphobic attack that Alabanza was subject to a few years ago. A transphobic slur was yelled, and a burger was thrown at them on a busy bridge in London, but no passers-by stopped to say anything. Ever since, burgers became an obsession for Alabanza, and this theatre piece was born out of that.

The piece is interactive and centres around a conversation between Alabanza and a (specifically requested) straight, cisgender, white male audience member. Throughout the piece, burgers act as a metaphor for the concept of gender, as well as discrimination; in some ways, they could also be seen as a metaphor for freedom. Because the audience member will be different for each show, each conversation is unique, which makes for an amusing, uncomfortable, gripping, and ultimately powerful experience.

The effect Burgerz had on me when I saw it is unforgettable. As a queer, black woman, it’s one of the only pieces of theatre that has ever allowed me to feel seen in my entirety, via its nuanced performance and acknowledgement of different experiences. However, it was not the discussion, but the audience reactions that had the biggest effect on me emotionally.

“Each conversation is unique, which makes for an amusing, uncomfortable, gripping, and ultimately powerful experience.”

To be in a theatre, where the main person on stage is a queer, trans black person, telling their story, is exceptional in itself. Alabanza’s monologues about gender identity, racism, and violence were so raw, relentlessly honest and, at times, so angry, that I could almost literally feel their pain - as I believe the rest of the audience could as well. We too felt powerless, and proud, and wistful, and furious; but what struck me, was that there was never any antagonism.

We were a mostly cisgender (myself included) and white audience – there certainly would’ve been room, and almost expectation, for argument – but instead there was simply an atmosphere of warmth. In the show I was present for, when Alabanza, almost bitterly, asked the audience member to leave the stage, the man quietly went up to them and shook their hand before departing. This moment of wordless solidarity and respect was more powerful and more human than any scripted piece of theatre could ever conceptualise.

Burgerz is everything I believe theatre should be. It opens up an invaluable and authentic dialogue that many members of the audience would not experience elsewhere. It is refreshingly genuine, and unrelenting about the pain many queer, trans people of colour go through, but is also beautifully proud and open. Alabanza has managed to craft a stunningly sincere piece of work, and I urge everyone to see it when it comes to Cambridge on 27th November. There’s nothing quite like it.