Charm Transcends its Limitations

By Patrick Hurley

Set in an LGBTQ center in Chicago, Charm, playing now at the Celebration theatre, takes on the hot-button issues of gender identity, sexuality, and race, and does so with a  sometimes light and highly comedic touch. Darleena Andrews (Lana Houston) arrives at the Center to volunteer her time to teach a trans-youth charm class. Darleena, who goes by Mama, is welcomed to the Center by D (Rebekah Walendzak), a person who doesn’t claim a gender, a concept very foreign to the sixty-something Mama, who has very old-fashioned ideals about what it means to identify as male or female. This sets up a clash that will undoubtedly occur between the two. Read more