Gislina Patterson and Dasha Plett are the two self-described transsexual artists behind We Quit Theatre, a performance collaboration based in Winnipeg. On Feb. 6, 13 and 20, they will present Men Explain Things to Us… and We Like It! — a descriptively titled trilogy of talk show episodes featuring male guests speaking about their passions and experiences regarding masculinity, plus musical performances. The three episodes will all have themes for discussion, which are “fantasy,” “romance” and “men,” respectively.

“All of our guests are real people coming on the show to talk about real things that they actually really care about,” Patterson pitched. “But everything surrounding them will be artificial and heightened and quite theatrical.”

“The two of us [have] very different feelings about masculinity and our interests in masculinity as a concept,” Patterson explained. “The idea for this project came from [this idea of] what if we could ask men what it’s like, what it feels like for them to be a man? There’s ways that masculinity is seen as neutral.”

“We’re very interested in investigating it a little more closely and putting it under a microscope in the way that femininity and femaleness is often much more put under a microscope and seen as performative. And so, this idea of engaging in a conversation about what masculinity actually is, what it feels like, why someone might want to do it, or not want to do it, and how they do it.”

“There’s a lot of different ways to think about gender and about having a gender,” Plett elaborated. “Everyone is building their gender all the time. And that’s something that [transgender] people are doing in a way that is more culturally recognized and talked about. But [cisgender] people are also doing that all the time, and so [the inspiration] was something about the way that a talk show or a TV show is so obviously constructed, that it’s so obviously edited together, or affected by the camera angle, or the quality of the footage itself.”

The talk show format is a product of local 1990s nostalgia. The neon-coloured set will include multiple VHS camcorders for filming, and a backdrop collage of the Winnipeg skyline made from cardboard and construction paper. Men Explain Things to Us… and We Like It! is especially inspired by Winnipeg’s former VPW station. As a public access station, it broadcasted a wide variety of unorthodox TV programming sourced from independent producers.

“The most well-known and in some ways memorable show to come out of VPW was this show called Survival, which was a fictitious talk show about how to survive the apocalypse,” Plett cited. “It’s just so militantly weird and obviously just the exact thing these guys wanted to make.”

We Quit Theatre has produced and performed three full performances since their partnership began around 2018. Their debut was Plett’s semi-autobiography titled 805-4821. The show featured Plett using an overhead projector to display the printed script one line at a time for the audience to read in silence. Plett and Patterson have also produced performances in other cities across the country, noting that audiences in Winnipeg are typically less receptive to their experimental approaches to theatre. 

The conception of Men Explain Things to Us… and We Like It! began in roughly 2021 with a short episode created for the Stratford Festival Laboratory, marking the duo’s first time working in a video format. It was derived from the title, which originated as a joke and turned into a real project upon its expansion.

Interestingly, this is not the first transgender-themed spoof of ’90s public access television. There is also the 2024 American film I Saw the TV Glow, which enjoyed widespread acclaim among fans of experimental cinema and the wider transgender community. However, that is a horror movie, and Patterson and Plett’s satirical talk show will bear little resemblance.

The limited studio audience seats have already sold out for each filming, but the shows will also be available to watch live online and screened at Winnipeg Film Group’s Black Lodge Studio with artist Leigh Lugosi — plus other live screenings in Toronto and Guelph.