The Wilma Theater presents DJ Hills’s Horsegirl & Cowdaddy

Growing up rural

People are often surprised to learn that I come from the region disparagingly called “Pennsyltucky”. I grew up in South Central Pennsylvania, in a small, forgotten railroad town like the one where the play is set. Down the street from our residential neighborhood were hills with cornfields—I know the pleasure and peace of walking through them. We moved there when I was seven; my father, a gastroenterologist, took a position at a nearby hospital. There were no GI doctors in the entire region at the time and people are still grateful for the care he gave.

There was a queer community there, too, but you had to know where to look. My mom and I were active in the community theater and had many gay friends there. I went dancing at the one gay club in the area, a dark place hidden on the outskirts of town. There are now drag shows in the area—I saw ads for one in the local paper when I was back visiting my dad not long ago. There are also homes set on hills that fly large Confederate flags.

A familiar family

When I first heard that Horsegirl & Cowdaddy follows a trans woman in her 30s living in a rural Pennsylvania town with her father, I wondered whether the characters would feel familiar.

They do. Cowdaddy, played with immense warmth and humanity by Lindsay Smiling (the Wilma’s artistic director), reminded me of the father of a high-school friend of mine. That man was also a blue-collar worker who’d never traveled much outside of the area, and even though he considered me his daughter’s “weird friend”, he would do anything for me (and got us out of a few mishaps).

Cowdaddy and his daughter Horsegirl (the talented Samora de la Brisa) have a sweet, intimate dynamic with hints of enmeshment. Their loving relationship is based on thoughtfulness and care for one another; as in the way they bring each other takeout food. This ordinary caring between an aging father and an adult child shouldn’t strike us as exceptional, but because we know that less than a third of transgender youth report support and acceptance from their parents, it is.

As a mother myself of a young adult transgender son, I knew the importance of offering unconditional love to my son when he came out to us. There are very few portrayals of the parents who react this way, and in Hills’s play, lack of prior knowledge or experience with trans people is no barrier to Cowdaddy’s instinct to continue to be a stable, loving parent.

In the play’s opening scene, Horsegirl is tired after they eat dinner and wants to go to bed; Cowdaddy offers to make coffee so they can stay up and watch TV together. Their dynamic, set in place when Horsegirl’s mother left, will quickly get knocked out of balance when Horsegirl’s new friend comes to dinner.

Beautiful intimacy

Bethel (Ni-Ni) is a teacher/graduate student eager to help their underserved students, but who lacks understanding about the real lives the kids and their parents are living. Fortunately Hills uses very gentle comedy to cut through the awkwardness and discomfort of that first dinner, and throughout the ensuing scenes.

Horsegirl and Bethel seek out privacy in her bedroom, where their flirtatious tension becomes genuine connection. Horsegirl shares her love of the animal with Bethel and brings out a paper-mache horse head (wonderfully crafted by puppet designer Erik Ruin). When she places it on her head, Bethel does not back away.

In beautifully staged intimacy throughout the play, we watch their relationship develop through role play; Bethel at times wielding a riding crop, Horsegirl offering her back to ride.

Audience members are sent dramaturgical material ahead of the performance about the dynamics of BDSM and consent. It’s a thoughtful gesture, though nothing in those scenes feels especially provocative. The nuanced lighting (Kate McGee) and sound design (Johnny Gasper) as well as intimacy coordinator Leo Mock’s choreography for those scenes create a clearly liminal world, far away from the kitchen and Cowdaddy’s TV chair, where mundane life falls away and a wild, dreamlike energy draws Horsegirl and Bethel together.

The benefit of two acts

Director Adil Mansoor’s production runs one hour and 45 minutes without intermission, and it could have benefitted from having two acts. Personally, as a woman in my 50s who needs to use the restroom and/or stretch my body at least once every hour, I was anxious about being disruptive if I needed to step out in the middle of the show. I was physically okay to hang in, but could feel the show's pacing drag as it moves towards its last third, toward a big reveal.

Had there been two acts, an announcement from Bethel could have felt less abrupt, but as the play stands, the character is mostly one-note, not given an opportunity to grow or transform. Despite some genuine moments when Bethel, whose own parents are cold and distant, is embraced by Cowdaddy, the character is given no real opportunity to wrestle with their dilemma.

Imagined or real?

I love magic realism, and this portrayal of a trans woman embodying the animal part of herself is a very moving concept. The design elements of the transformation are extraordinary, but the script needs more clarity. Is her transformation part of an imagined world, or the real one?

Cowdaddy unconditionally loves his child, which didn’t change when he learned she was trans. But when a writer creates a fantastical world in a realistic setting, details are needed to make that world feel believable. We get only one beat at the end of the play about Horsegirl’s physical experience. We need to know more about what it means for her.

A sweet family

Still, the love and celebration at the heart of the playwright’s unique vision is inspiring, and the audience was clearly captivated with the sweet family on stage and the possibility the play opens in our imaginations. We see that queer and trans people can be not just accepted, but loved and valued in their families, wherever they happen to be from, and that a happy enough life could be available to us all.

Know before you go: This play includes simulated sex acts, partial nudity, and kink. It also includes strobing and flashing lights, loud sounds (including gunshots), and haze.

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