stella41b
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Joined: 10/16/2007
From: SW London (UK)
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quote:
The following is a translation into English of an article which appears in 'features', page 9 of Gazeta Wyborcza - a Polish newspaper - edition 246 dated 21st October 2005.
The first fringe theatres started appearing in London in 1948. This idea inspired Teatr Osmego Dnia to develop street theatre in Poland in the 1960's and 1970's. The work of the great authority on modern theatre Jerzy Grotowski, though influenced by fringe theatre, never led to this type of theatre being developed in Poland.
Fringe theatre is neither professional nor amateur theatre. It takes place in non-theatrical buildings. During the 1990's this concept of theatre was introduced to Poland through the work of XXXXXXXXX.
Pawel Sowa.
That XXXXXXXXX is me. The above is a review of a performance of one of my plays (the photo below is also taken from that performance) which opened in Gdansk, Poland in March 1995. That same play is being staged today somewhere in Spain.
This article appeared less than a month of me coming out publicly as 'myself' Stella in Poland, in the small Polish town of Zywiec where I had set up the first theatre in the town's history, shortly before my first and only public appearance as Stella at the 2005 Warsaw Equality Parade standing shoulder to shoulder with the Polish LGBT community. This was part of the acknowledgement and recognition I received for being possibly the first and only to successfully 'cross over' from Western Europe to Eastern Europe in the performing arts.
To many people I am many things, to some undoubtedly I am the 'freak', both for being transgendered and also for my artistic work, I am definitely not mainstream.
My 'coming out' came at immense personal cost to me, I lost almost everything, friends, contacts, a relationship, my work, my career and artistic reputation - Polish society which is heavily influenced by the Catholic Church has no place for people like me anywhere in culture, sport or education - and ultimately my home. This included the friends where I had worked in Warsaw, such as the Polish football (soccer) association where I had spent time teaching English to the management of the Polish 2002 World Cup entourage, politicians, journalists, others in the entertainment industry. It cost me a possible film project with Andrzej Wajda, and at the time I had been approached by the (now governing) Platforma Obywatelska (Citizens Platform) political party to stand as a candidate in their European elections for Warsaw.
I had been planning to 'come out' all along, finally making the decision when I wrote my stage play 'Death' that August, at the same time as Hurricane Katrina, and had decided to do so because I knew of my Polish friends in a similar situation to me who had come out or tried to and lost everything (as I did) and I felt that my not being Polish would work in my favour.
This came after my meeting with the street homeless at Warsaw East station, men and women who had marched, demonstrated and gone out on strike in support of Lech Walesa and the Polish Solidarity movement, but who since then had lost their jobs, their livelihoods and their homes and families. The final spark was reading the above article after the performances and watching from my kitchen window my neighbour leaving his apartment block with a barrow to collect empty beer cans to sell at a recycling plant to raise money to pay bills and put a loaf of bread on the family dinner table.
These were the people who had accepted me, who had made me what I was, and I felt that in pretending just to be a public figure that I was deceiving them. For years I had accepted that deceit was part and parcel of being transgendered but I also knew that it was also my own lack of courage for not standing up and facing up to all my issues - which I had been doing privately for some years. I was still hiding behind a facade, and I decided to remove that facade completely so that I too could go out and show myself to the world.
This was how I returned to the UK and how I ended up having to work my way back from zero - from being street homeless, working my way through the system through to what is today - where literally today I am meeting two actresses to discuss a film project adapted from that very same stage play 'Death' written in 2005.
I want my cake and to eat it too, I want to be myself and accepted as such, and to be recognized finally for my artistic work, something which I would have been able to take for granted perhaps had I chosen not to come out publicly like I did.
From a certain perspective it would appear that I have the same issues now as I had in Poland, that the same struggle is taking place but only that my geographical location and appearance have changed. But no, the way I see it, it is no longer about me, and who I am, but about everyone.
Yes I identify myself as female, but I cannot have the child I long for, I cannot even have a period and at the age of 43 I have no knowledge of what most women take for granted - I do not know what it is like to be loved, emotionally, psychologically, physically, to have a body, heart and mind all in union. All I know is that I was slowly destroying myself, killing myself, hurting those close to me, those who knew me, through being who I was, and facing an imminent death, which admittedly I had tried to bring on a couple of times through suicide, only to be lying six feet under and remembered for who I am not and never will be.
But the way I see it I am not the 'freak', I refuse to see anyone who is gay, lesbian, or transgendered as anyone other than the individuals who they are in reality and as a valued member of humanity the same as everyone else. I also don't have an issue with those who are heterosexual, bisexual, whatever, we are all part of humanity and part of society. The freaks to me are those who cannot accept this single fact as the truth.
But unfortunately the freaks constitute a number, and they also influence the rest. Hence I remember my one night in the United States in the cell of a city jail in Atlanta. I remember going to the employment agencies in London looking for work, giving them my name, my CV and my details, and witnessing that silence as the woman at the desk looks at me, then at her colleagues trying to think of a company where she could place me for an assignment. We live in a world which appears to be divided into strictly defined gender roles - male or female - and if you don't conform to either then there appears to be no place for you in this world.
I refuse to accept this world, but prefer instead the world of reality, of which I am a part, as is everybody else who are different, and I know that to get anywhere - for me personally - this can no longer be my issue alone for if it is I will stand alone against the rest of society and the rest of the world and lose.
This explains my life the way it is now, my activist ideals, why I am working to set up a charity working against social stigma, and why when my films finally do come out things are going to be different. This isn't just about me, it's about everybody and anybody who may be considered a freak by the freaks - it doesn't matter whether you are excluded or shut out as I have been, or if you have to hide behind a facade of being 'normal' and be less open about certain aspects of who you are as a person. It just has somehow happened that in becoming me, myself, my life has become one of causes where I have decided to use my experience, abilities and talents to provide a platform and to further the causes of anyone who is excluded or who is vulnerable to the risk of being socially excluded just for being who they are as people.
There are people I left behind in Poland, when I left behind a sort of uncomfortable silence and taboo. Some of those people who were associated with me were in turn ostracized by other Poles, including those you see in the photo, and they too lost jobs, friends, etc. I also have a couple of former friends who didn't accept me. I have been denounced by the Catholic Church as evil, and one friend has promised that if we ever were to meet he would kill me.
When I left I promised that I would return one day. I am today working on film projects to submit to film festivals and some of those festivals are in Poland. One such festival takes place in August immediately before the major Golden Lion awards ceremony, another in November in Warsaw and I am hoping that this year I will be able to fulfill that promise and return, as myself, to Poland as an artist.
I have no regrets about the ways things have been and the decisions I have made, nor have I any regrets about walking away from everything just to be myself, or to stand up against those bigger than me such as the Catholic Church and the government in support of others irrespective of who they are, whether they be transgendered, gay, kinky, homeless, or whatever reason they be persecuted by others just for being who they are in reality. These are decisions I stand by and decisions I am fully prepared to die for.
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