Introduction: Noel Gruber and the Power of Performance

The stage is dimly lit, a single spotlight illuminating Noel Gruber as he transforms from his school uniform into a delicate slip dress and wig. He moves with an exaggerated elegance, striking dramatic poses as he croons about a doomed love affair in postwar France. His voice, both longing and theatrical, transforms the high school chamber choir stage into a smoky Parisian cabaret. He is no longer a small-town Canadian teenager — he is Monique Gibeau, a tragic heroine lost in a fantasy of romance and suffering.

This moment from Ride the Cyclone is more than just a song, it is a performance in every sense of the word. Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau is not about being a woman, but about performing a stylized version of femininity. His gestures, vocal inflections, and aesthetic choices are all carefully constructed acts, layered with artifice and theatricality. In this way, Noel’s Lament exemplifies what Richard Schechner (2020) calls restored behavior, a performance that is rehearsed, repeated, and shaped by cultural memory. Noel Gruber does not create his identity from nothing; instead, he pulls from a collection of aesthetic references, constructing his femininity through borrowed gestures, costume and voice.

Camp as Queer Expression: Excess as Art and Identity

This performance aligns with “camp”, as defined by Susan Sontag (1964), which thrives on excess, theatricality, and the blurring of sincerity and parody. To further understand Noel Gruber’s stylized femininity, we can turn to camp as both a cultural sensibility and a queer strategy. Rather than striving for realism, Noel Gruber leans into artificiality. This echoes Galyna Kotliuk’s (2023) argument that theatrical femininity can simultaneously critique and celebrate gender norms. Richard Dyer (2002) expands on this by framing camp as not only an aesthetic, but a survival mechanism; a way for queer individuals to endure heteronormative spaces by embracing their theatricality, parody, and excess. For Noel Gruber, adopting Monique Gibeau’s tragic persona isn’t just about performance, it’s about channeling his queer identity through the deeply felt, yet exaggerated, lens of camp.

Through camp, historical references, and vocal stylization, Noel’s Lament subverts traditional gender roles. Using Judith Butler’s (1999) gender performativity, Susan Sontag’s (1964) camp aesthetics, and Richard Schechner’s (2020) theories of performance, I argue that Noel Gruber’s transformation is not just comedic but a meaningful exploration of identity, artifice and self-expression.

Gender in the Voice: Auditory Performance and Vocal Transformation

Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau is constructed not only through costume and movement but also through his voice. This dimension of performance deserves focused attention, as the auditory elements alone reveal the careful construction of gender. His vocal performance exemplifies how gender is enacted through stylized repetition, aligning with Judith Butler’s (1999) theory of gender performativity. Noel Gruber’s voice, in all its exaggerated, dramatic glory, plays a key role in shaping his gendered self-expression.

The official Spotify recording of Noel’s Lament (2021) removes the visual elements of the performance, leaving only the vocal delivery to convey Noel Gruber’s transformation. His voice is carefully crafted — breathy, delicate, and emotionally indulgent — mirroring the stylized femininity of many tragic divas. This is a great place to start when considering the many aspects of this performance, as it allows the listener to create their own image in their mind based on the voice and lyrics alone, showing the true power of music in performance. Gillian Rodger (2004) argues that vocal manipulation allows performers to play with gender identity by adopting qualities that may not align with their physical presentation. Noel Gruber’s voice as Monique Gibeau is a wonderful example of this, as his feminine vocal style does not align with his everyday self. Vocal shifts like changes in pitch, tone and phrasing, can blur the lines between masculine and feminine-coded performances. The musicality of the song further reinforces the construction of femininity. The soft vibrato, the elongated syllables, and the controlled phrasing all contribute to an aesthetic of theatrical excess. According to Susan Sontag (1964), camp is characterized by embracing style over content, and Noel Gruber’s vocal performance embodies this principle. He does not aim to realistically imitate a woman’s voice but to craft an exaggerated, performative femininity. This allows him to immerse himself in the fantasy of Monique Gibeau, embracing a form of gender expression that is both playful and deeply personal.

By focusing on the auditory aspects of Noel’s Lament, it becomes clear that Noel Gruber’s voice is a central tool in his gendered self-expression. His vocal performance is not a naturalized expression of femininity, but a carefully crafted act that aligns with both Gillian Rodger’s (2004) vocal cross-dressing and Susan Sontag’s (1964) camp aesthetics. Through pitch, tone, and stylization, Noel Gruber constructs a persona that is both hyper-feminine and deeply theatrical, emphasizing that gender, much like performance itself, is an act of continuous creation. While sound plays a critical role, it is Noel Gruber’s physical presence — his posture, gesture, and choreography — that completes his transformation on stage.

Embodied Performance: Movement, Gesture, and Drag History

The physical elements of the performance such as the gestures, posture, and movement, are essential when analyzing the content of Noel’s Lament. The above Instagram post (2018) from Khobly Wardell’s personal account captures a single, theatrical moment from Noel’s Lament. In the image, Wardell’s pose is exaggerated, his body angled dramatically, and his expression filled with longing. While these elements can be seen in the video recording of the performance, this still allows for more detail to be clearly seen. As it was posted by the original actor, it also highlights that this moment was important to him.

The full video recording of Noel’s Lament further illustrates how Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau relies on carefully choreographed movement. Each performance of this song will be unique, as that is the nature of performance. Since this performance is from a musical, it was challenging to find high quality recordings of this song. This video was selected as it includes the full song and has a quality high enough to understand each of the visual elements. Throughout the song, his physicality is intentional, using slow and deliberate hand movements and shifting between poised elegance and exaggerated longing. His fluid hand gestures mimic the delicate, exaggerated femininity often seen in classical Hollywood actresses, further aligning his performance with established tropes of feminine theatricality. Through this video, we can experience the lighting, the stage positioning, and the reactions and contributions of the other characters, and examine how they contribute to the construction of Noel Gruber’s fantasy.

Richard Schechner (2020) argues that all performance is twice-behaved behavior, or an act that has been rehearsed, repeated, and stylized over time. Noel Gruber’s femininity is not spontaneous but constructed through a series of learned gestures, which he consciously adopts to embody Monique Gibeau. Performance can be transformative. Here, Noel Gruber is not just an act of gender performance, but an act of self-exploration. The conventions of theatricality allow him to live in his fantasy, even for only a moment. Laurence Senelick (2000) notes that theatrical drag throughout history has functioned not only to entertain but to disrupt gender hierarchies by exaggerating and exposing them.

By analyzing the physical aspects of Noel Gruber’s performance, it becomes clear that his transformation into Monique Gibeau is deeply rooted in embodied performance. Noel Gruber’s femininity is a carefully curated performance, reminiscent of many historical examples of fashion and gender subversion. To more fully situate this performance within a larger cultural tradition, we must explore how historical and theatrical references shape Noel Gruber’s choices.

Historical Echoes: Fashion, Flappers, and Musical Lineage

Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau does not exist in a vacuum, it draws upon a rich history of gendered performance, particularly within music, theater, and fashion. His aesthetic choices, from the slip dress to his exaggerated gestures, align with past forms of gender subversion, demonstrating how contemporary gender play is informed by historical traditions.

The image of a 1920s flapper provides an important visual reference point for understanding Noel Gruber’s aesthetic choices. While he places Monique Gibeau in “post-war France”, his outfit, hairstyle, and overall presentation are more reminiscent of the flapper era. Flappers embraced short hair, loose dresses, and a playful femininity that rejected traditional modesty. The style choices also evoke the costuming choices from the musical Chicago, which draws heavily on the 1920s flapper style to portray women who embrace sexuality, ambition, and spectacle (Fierberg 2020). The costume designer William Ivey Long emphasized how sleek, minimal black outfits reveal the performers’ movement and character. Noel Gruber’s costuming similarly uses this historical visual language to construct a gendered fantasy that is performative, glamorous, and emotionally charged. Galyna Kotliuk (2023) argues that drag and gendered performance often rely on past eras for inspiration, reinterpreting historical styles in ways that challenge contemporary gender norms. These references can be both nostalgic and transgressive. Noel Gruber’s dress, wig, and heels connect his performance to the historical lineage of women who challenged gendered expectations. While Noel Gruber’s aesthetic borrows from historical femininity, his performance also aligns with the gender subversion found in popular music.

Annie Lennox’s 1987 performance, in which she dressed as Elvis Presley, provides a striking parallel to Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau. Gillian Rodger (2004) introduces the concept of vocal cross-dressing, referring to the idea that singers can challenge gender norms not only through appearance but also through vocal performance. Lennox, for example, adopts the deep, commanding voice of a male rock icon while maintaining a sense of theatricality. This performance is not just an impersonation but a deliberate exaggeration of gendered traits, making it an act of both homage and parody. Gender performance in music is often about occupying an in-between space, where artists can play with expectations rather than conforming to them. By situating Noel Gruber’s performance within historical and musical contents, this section demonstrates that Noel’s Lament is not just a singular act of gender play but part of a larger tradition. It also acts to reinforce the argument that this performance is both deeply personal and a part of a broader cultural history of theatrical gender expression.

Conclusion: Monique Gibeau, Performance, and the Queer Self

Noel’s Lament is more than just a song, it is a theatrical exploration of gender, artifice, and self-expression. Through vocal stylization, exaggerated physicality, and historical references, Noel Gruber constructs a femininity that is not meant to be realistic but rather performative, aligning with theories of gender as a repeated, stylized act (Butler 1999). His performance, shaped by camp aesthetics (Sontag 1964) and Richard Schechner’s (2020) concept of restored behavior, demonstrates how gender is not something innate but something enacted, borrowed, and reinterpreted. The auditory elements of his performance, from the breathy delicacy of his voice to the emotional excess of his phrasing show how even without visual cues, gender can be communicated and manipulated through sound (Rodger 2004). Meanwhile, the visual aspects of elegance, choreographed movement, and historical femininity situate this transformation within a broader cultural history of gendered performance.

By examining Noel’s Lament through multiple lenses it becomes clear that Noel Gruber’s transformation into Monique Gibeau is not simply about playing dress-up. It is an act of artistic self-exploration that allows him to embrace a fantasy of femininity that he is not allowed in his own life (Wardell 2017). Ride the Cyclone presents a character who does not fit into strict binaries, instead embracing theatricality as a means of self-definition. Through this analysis, I have come to appreciate the ways in which theatrical gender expression can be a powerful means of questioning, critiquing, and celebrating identity. Noel’s Lament ultimately reveals how theatrical performance can open space for queer self-fashioning and emotional truth through aspects of sincerity, camp, and subversion.

References

Butler, Judith. 1999. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge.

Dyer, Richard. 2002. The Culture of Queers. 1st ed. Routledge.

Fierberg, Ruthie. 2020. How the Chicago Costumes Have Evolved Over 25 Years. Playbill. https://playbill.com/article/how-the-chicago-costumes-have-evolved-over-25-years

Kotliuk, Galyna. 2023. “Gender on Stage: Drag Queens and Performative Femininity.” International Journal of European Studies 7 (1): 8–14. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijes.20230701.12.

Lordemann, Elmar J. 2007. Annie Lennox Rock am Ring 1987. Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Lennox#/media/File:Annie_Lennox_Rock_am_Ring_1987.jpg. CC BY SA 2.0.

pennyspitter. 2011. 1920s flapper. Photograph. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/7246789@N08/5809256438. CC BY 2.0.

Rodger, Gillian M. 2004. “Drag, Camp and Gender Subversion in the Music and Videos of Annie Lennox.” Popular Music 23 (1): 17–29. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3877623.

Schechner, Richard. 2020. Performance Studies: An Introduction. 4th ed. Routledge.

Senelick, Laurence. 2000. The Changing Room: Sex, Drag and Theatre. 1st ed. Routledge.

Sontag, Susan. 1964. “Notes on ‘Camp’.” Partisan Review 31 (4): 515–530.

Wardell, Kholby. 2017. “Riding the Cyclone: One Actor’s Take on the Rollercoaster Journey of Atomic Vaudeville’s Ride the Cyclone.” Canadian Theatre Review 171: 59–66. https://doi.org/10.3138/ctr.171.011.