Ex-hasidic, trans and brutally honest, Lili Rosen invites you to her ‘Second Circumcision’
The one-woman show is a funny, poignant account of the performer’s transition
Lili Rosen’s new play is both painful and joyous — just like a circumcision. Photo by Maya Baran
By PJ Grisar October 17, 2024
Lili Rosen’s one woman show, The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen, about her gender transition and coming out to her Hasidic family, opens with an act of, well, opening.
“Per my doctor’s orders, I need to dilate three times a day for 30 minutes in order to maintain the aperture and depth of my ‘designer vaginer’ or it will close up with time,” Rosen tells the audience of the process, which involves a series of “medical-grade dildos” of increasing girth.
Dilation, an onerous task that Rosen says is little discussed, even within trans circles, in a way tracks with her life growing up Hasidic in Borough Park, Brooklyn.
“It’s ritualistic,” Rosen said in Zoom call. “And it kind of oddly parallels prayer three times a day, and it’s roughly as time-consuming — although this is probably more time consuming — but also meditative in many ways.”
It is also an act of creation. In the show, which debuts Oct. 25 at the 14th Street Y in Manhattan, Rosen recalls wisdom from the Talmud that says parents partner with the creator when they conceive their children. Dilating, she says, shows that she is a partner (with her surgeon) in the creation of her vagina.
Rosen, an actor, writer and Yiddish consultant for films and shows like Unorthodox, first decided to tell her story in the form of a screenplay. In it, she wrote an imagined conversation with her parents. At the time she was grappling with how to express gender identity to them, knowing their world lacked much of the vocabulary to express these ideas. (Rosen, who translated a children’s book about gender and sexuality into Yiddish, ended up coming out publicly in an interview about the book.)
When Rosen’s collaborator, Ronit Muszkatblit at LABA: A Laboratory for Jewish Culture, encouraged her to apply for LABA’s upcoming season, Rosen began adapting the script for the stage. The structure has changed quite a bit since the early stages as Rosen’s life has changed.
The show was first scheduled to run in June, but was delayed over HVAC issues. Since then, Rosen has had gender-affirming surgery, giving the piece, directed by Lindsey Hope Pearlman a “post-op perspective.” Dilation became the show’s framing device, during which Rosen, playing herself, her parents, her girlfriend and her old principal at Yeshiva, reflects on her life.
“My goal is simply to tell my story and perhaps inspire other people with it,” said Rosen. “I feel this obligation, this calling to, because I have a voice, to some extent, to use it on behalf of my trans siblings.”
Perhaps even more important, in a climate that is increasingly hostile to the community, is the need for trans people to tell their own stories “rather than have other people tell our stories for us.”
Rosen’s story isn’t always happy — she’s estranged from much of her family. But it has also given her the joy of finding love and becoming her true self. It is both poignant and affirming and, if you couldn’t tell, quite intimate.
“I mean, it’s a circumcision, right?” Rosen said. “It’s meant to be painful. The process is painful, but it’s still a joyous occasion.”
Rosen’s show The Second Circumcision of Lili Rosen is playing at the 14th Street Y Oct. 25-27. Tickets and more information can be found on its website.
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