The Rocky Mountain Special: a meandering musical road trip
19 Nov 2023

by Drew Rowsome - Photos by Jeremy Mimnagh 

The staircase that descends dramatically from the second floor to the foot of the stage at Buddies, could almost have been designed for making an entrance. Tiffany Thomas makes full use of it as she wafts down, step by measured step, clad in a simple black dress and singing "She'll be coming 'round the mountain" in a clear confident voice. Thomas's voice has a remarkable quality in that it is strong and solid, as Thomas demonstrates with repeated showy sustained notes, but also has a fragile quality, an occasional tenuous vibrato, that makes one lean in. The songs, mostly country rock/folk song fragments, are the best part of The Rocky Mountain Special. Thomas does know how to sell a lyric even if the melody meanders and is unfocussed. Unfortunately it would take a lot more skill to sell the even more meandering and unfocussed dramatic portions of The Rocky Mountain Special, though Thomas makes a valiant attempt.

The basic premise is intriguing, a trans woman with writer's block takes a road trip, the Rocky Mountain Special, with an elderly trans woman who—spoiler alert!—is herself from the future. A road trip is a perfect opportunity to iron out differences, bicker, and discover hard truths about oneself. Or, in this case, it can be an opportunity to throw a multitude of metaphors and idea fragments against the wall in the hopes that some will stick. I should have paid more attention when Thomas announced that this was "my life story told as a dream." Applying dream logic, there are ideas that are notable: changelings and the trans experience, adoption and the trans experience, baby boys being dressed as girls to fool kidnapping fairies, the value of cigarettes in that "a pack a day keeps the devil away," and David Bowie eating compost. All of those disparate thoughts are carefully repeated or echoed and the Bowie compost metaphor is even underlined with a sung quote from "Rebel Rebel." Though I'm still not sure what it means beyond a surrealistic androgynous flourish.

A sudden left turn into sci-fi with the introduction of memory banks (and, of course, the time portal in the bus washroom) is promising, but it too just meanders away. Thomas seems to have a lot to say, a lot she is trying to convey, but the organizing and underlining to communicate it to the audience eludes. There is a delicious subtext-driven ode to Greyhound, but the only blunt lyric comes out of nowhere, "I didn't drink enough water until I came out as trans." By the time she sings in the final number 
If you want to get to know me

You'll know I'm dangerous
Not in like a harmful way
But its bad enough I guess

one just wants some clarity. And perhaps a little more drama though I would have settled for more singing.

Thomas, the playwright/lyricist/composer, toys with the idea of cultural appropriation. The character, identifying as a "racially ambiguous trans woman," has written an autobiographical play about the "Troubled life and times of an Irish orphan," references a multitude of  heritages, but undercuts it all with the funniest line in the show. Future Tiffany explains that she wrote a play about being Cree event though she identified as Irish/Asian (or maybe not because of the adoption thing). Contemporary Tommy says that "sounds risky," and Tiffany quips, "Not really. It was 2019 and white people were all over that stuff." As one of the 'white people' in the audience, I was, no question, at The Rocky Mountain Special as an ally eager to experience a journey into the trans experience. Some insight. Universality. I didn't mind being slurred as slumming, I'd have to plead guilty to doing that myself in a gay context, but I did wish fervently that Thomas had enlisted a ruthless dramaturge to help shape The Rocky Mountain Special into something pointed and potent. There is more than enough there to bridge the gap and bring an audience along for the journey. 

It should be noted that I saw a preview performance of The Rocky Mountain Special so I'm going to refrain from mentioning a few technical and performance glitches. Thomas is a compelling performer, more so when playing the bruised by life Tiffany than the afraid of being bruised  and cowering Tommy. As aforementioned: much of the singing is excellent with emoting that somewhat papers over the lack of lyrical and textual context. Thomas frequently refers to her work, and ostensibly this work, as a "musical." It wouldn't be cultural appropriation if Thomas helped herself to some country rock staples like simple narrative, blunt metaphors and raw (even if feigned) emotion to make The Rocky Mountain Special into a musical that expresses the emotions that can be heard in her voice.