Going through the transcript of my conversation with Rebecca felt like deciphering a lost language. We sat down at Society Café at prime time and my poor iPhone microphone couldn’t phase out the bustle. About three minutes into the recording, we devolve into hysterics over our mutual love for John Cameron Mitchell’s eclectic rock musical ‘Hedwig and the Angry Inch’, of which the transcript seems to have only picked up the vowels. This became a recurring theme, though not always due to technical issues. For approximately an hour and a half, Rebecca and I were speaking a language entirely foreign to everyone else, an exercise in “yes, and” (though we agree that neither of us has a penchant for stand-up).

That is the magic of drama, though—it allows people to express themselves in any manner of ridiculous ways, comforted by the knowledge that only others who have tasted this freedom will understand. Rebecca would know: she is the current president of Wadham Drama, a second-year experimental psychologist, and the least number of shows she’s been induring a single term (at whatever capacity, be it acting, producing, writing, marketing, choreographing—you name it) is two, in Michaelmas of her first year. I gawk at her when she tells me this; how did she commit so early on? How does she make the time? She laughs, brushing it off, but it’s impossible to undermine how impressive this is. Before coming to Oxford, Rebecca’s domain was dance; after seeing an enlightening student production of ‘Hamlet’ and joining the Light Entertainment Society, she veered towards theatre, working both as a performer and in various roles behind the stage. When I ask her to introduce herself at the start of our chat, she panics after getting through the formalities—“I don’t have any fun facts, I never have any fun facts!” I insist that everything she’s said is a fun fact (though my favourite might be that she got typecast as a “sexy man” in her first year), having no doubt in my mind that she could one-up anybody during icebreakers.

The first student show I ever saw in Oxford was Wadham Drama’s production of ‘Macbeth’, which Rebecca produced and choreographed. I’ll set the scene for those who missed it: Halloween night, fog everywhere, the creaky pews of Wadham’s ante-chapel. The witches are sprawled on the floor, staring us down before the show even starts. Every single body present seems to be haunting the room. I wax lyrical about it to Rebecca at length and then compare it to their second Michaelmas ‘24 production, the ‘Cinderella’ pantomime, this one an original piece written by Rebecca. (I saw the opening show, and I only found out days later that she wasn’t part of the cast of actors—she was only standing in for the Baron that night. She tells me she has become something of a standby extraordinaire over the last two years.) All that I can say about this show is that the Fairy Godmother’s French drag king persona, “Jacques Shitte”, might have altered the course of Tuesgays forever. She excitedly mentions that they’re putting on ‘The Princess Bride’ as a garden play in Trinity, which leads to me gushing over Mandy Patinkin and pledging my attendance. Wadham has no single niche unless you consider “miscellaneous” to be a niche; in the least punny way possible, the ethos of Wadham Drama is to have fun and be yourself. “You know when you’re in a show, and your friends come up to you at the end and they’re like, ‘you look like you had fun’? I want them to genuinely think that.”

Most shows that you hear about in Oxford are produced by independent theatre groups. Wadham Drama is starkly different because it is primarily a college society, which is important to Rebecca: “It’s about supporting people who are new to it,”. ‘Macbeth’, which doesn’t necessarily fit the “whimsical vibe” that Wadham productions are known for, was the product of Rebecca giving director Holly the space to “let loose with their vision.” When she directed ‘Alice in Wonderland’, Wadham’s first pantomime, this is what the producer (and then president of the society), Ella, did for her, creating a space where any of her ideas could be platformed without her having to worry about logistics. This is what Rebecca now wants to give to people as president: “A student wants to do something and I… have the power to support them in that.” I suggest that this is part of why theatre is so appealing to queer people—creating an abstraction of reality where anything goes is the perfect playing field for expressions of queer identity. This is true for the actors as much as it is for the audience, which is why the annual pantomime has already become an integral Wadham ritual.

I posit that Wadham’s prevalence in the Oxford theatre scene and the college’s reputation as a queer hub are interdependent, an endless cycle of theatre uplifting queer voices which leads to more theatre, ad infinitum. We agree that theatre is, at its core, about subversion: “I love when people…break tradition.” She recounts how, when she went to see that illuminating production of ‘Hamlet’, at one point Hamlet came out in pyjama bottoms and a Lana Del Rey t-shirt. “It sticks with you. It makes you go, ‘Oh, I can be creative in this space.’ We’re all just constantly taking inspiration from each other, in some way,” even if it’s to put our own twist on  it. Sometimes, this all happens during one production: “So often in rehearsal for Cinderella, people would do things and I’d go, ‘That’s not written down, but I hate what I wrote, please do that instead!’” A play is a growing, evolving thing, and that’s largely due to the actors shaping it into their own throughout the process. “When you perform anything, you have to bring yourself to it in some way.” A gay innuendo waiting to happen, if you ask me.

Rebecca believes that the theatre scene in Oxford is the perfect place for Wadham Drama’s vision to manifest. From Shakespeare to StarKid , there is no end to the variety of shows you can put on and participate in. She tells me that, though she does not plan to continue acting as a career—she’s of an Oxford minority who are interested in pursuing something related to their degree—the variety that is provided here, along with the sincerity of how people approach the craft makes for a space that rivals the West End in every way that matters. The instability of the industry on a larger scale poses a problem for many aspiring actors, and it means that the Oxford scene is that much more valuable: “This is my creative outlet, and I’ll use it while it’s here.” That doesn’t mean that theatre is going anywhere after she graduates, though. “Theatre will always be something that I engage with, even if I’m not actively part of it,” she promises. “Best believe I’ll be going to see Hadestown until it closes in 60 years!”∎

Words by Rüya Oral. Image courtesy of Rebecca Harper.