Lust and Comfort. - Split Britches

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which seemed to transform instantly from comic pantomime to tragic reality. ... Lust and Comfort, performed by Lois Weaver and. Peggy Shaw, may be this duo's ...
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PerformanceReview

In much of the publicity materialgeneratedby the Denver Center Theatre Company regarding this play, the term "magic realism"was used to describe the style of the play and the production. Related to the style used by South Americanauthors such as Gabriel GarciaMarquez, the term seems misused here, and as misappropriateas calling any black-and-whitemovie film noir. Although born in Puerto Rico, Rivera'splay seems closer theatricallyto the world of Ionesco than to that of Marquez. Part of the difficulty in this productionwas the over-productionwhich is characteristicof the Denver CenterTheatreCompany'swork. An unnecessarilycomplexset was so busy with paintedgraffiti and hidden faces,that it was a constantdistraction from the action. The staging by Melia Bensussen seemed hamperedby the lack of focus allowed by the theatricalspace. The actors, however, gave a hint of the potentialpower and poetryin the script, which might be realized in a simpler and more effectivelyconceivedproduction. As Marisol, Clea Rivera embodied the vulnerability and child-like confusion of the role. Although none of the charactersin the play is written with depth or complexity, Rivera's Marisol provided a throughlinefor the play's picaresqueepisodes. It was David Adkins, however, as Lenny, the disturbedbrotherof Marisol'sfriendJune,who provided the show's heart and soul. Frightening, moving and funny, Adkins gave a performance that culminatedin his simulationof giving birth, which seemed to transforminstantly from comic pantomimeto tragicreality. Touching on issues of environmental,moral, social,and politicaldecay in contemporarysociety, Rivera'splay is ultimatelyabout too many things to focus persuasivelyon any. He has said that "one of the roles of the artist is to bear witness to our time." In this play, however, he seems to bear witness to so many things,that it is difficultfor the audience to see through the graffitistrewn landscape to the individuals within. Rivera'swriting, however, is fueled by both power and poetry,and if in this play he does not succeed in convincing us

of an impendingbattleof angels, he does convince us of his potentialas a majortheatricalvoice of the future.Whetherin a furtherrevisionof this play, or in works to come, Marisoldemonstratesthat there may be room for other angels in America. JOEL G. FINK

University of Colorado, Boulder

LUST AND COMFORT. By Peggy Shaw, Lois Weaver, and James Neale-Kennerly. Produced in association with Split Britches, New York, and Gay Sweatshop, London. La Mama, New York. 12 May 1995. LustandComfort, performedby Lois Weaverand Peggy Shaw, may be this duo's most self-referential play to date. Drawing on Pinter's screenplay for Losey's film The Servant, Fassbinder's The Bitter Tearsof Petra Von Kant, and Genet's play TheMaids,

the company has borrowed plotlines and characters from this materialin orderto createtheir own tale of obsession,dependency,desire, and control. The action is structuredas a play within a play within a play. In the outermost frame, Lust and Comfortis about an Americanscriptwriter,Tony, who moves to London in 1956 to complete his screenplay about an American actress living in Londonas a man. ButchlesbianPeggy Shaw plays Tony, and her conflation with the screenplay's male impersonatorembodies the butch lesbian appropriationof male appearancesand mannerisms, blurringthe boundariesbetween screenplay, play, and players. Lois Weaver's role in this first section is that of Tony's "manservant,"Barrett. Weaver,who usually performsthe femme in this couple, appearsin full butch garb as she defers to Shaw's Tony. Gender constructs are performed and destabilizedby these performersas theirbutch and femme identificationsbecome less and less fixed. Radicalinterruptionof narrativeis one meansby which Shaw and Weaverdestabilizefixed identity. Weaver,as Barrett,flips out of characterto say, "I hate this game!"to which Shaw replies, "No you don't, you love this game."The "game"here refers to role-play,forwhich one set of roles (andrules)is that of master and servant, both men. There are breaks in this script that signal the performers' desire to posit this gender-playas illusion: when Weaver'sBarrettsuggests the additionof a woman to the script,Shaw'sTonyretorts,"Therewill be no women in this house! Besides me, and you." The second story, which is layered inside the Tony/Barrett dialogue, is Tony's screenplay. Weaverdiscoversthis partialscriptin Shaw'stypewriter and reads it aloud, interruptingit to say, "I'mnot happy with this game; let's make a new one!" Ignoring Weaver's demand, Shaw's Tony continues to write his script, typing verbatim a dialogue he has spoken earlierwith Barrett.This "real"dialogue is itself interruptedin the retelling by Tony's fantasyof what should have been said.

PERFORMANCE REVIEW

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Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver in Lust and Comfort,by Shaw, Weaver and James Neale-Kennerly, at La MaMa, E.T.C., New York. Photo: Eva Weiss.

All scripts are hereby subject to interruption as screenplay merges with stage dialogue. "What next?" asks Weaver, referring to the stage action. Her character Barrett is stuck in a halted plotline, wanting to change the game. He is transformed into the ultra-femme Karin, a red-wigged Berlin Maid in g-string purple panties, high heels, and a frilly white apron. In her new persona, Weaver flounces around the stage, bare breasts and buttocks bouncing. She has become a mock pin-up girl, a screenplay character scheming to seduce Shaw's Tony.

Shaw calls a halt to Weaver's femme role-play. She again interrupts traditional narrative structure, making a bold move against the phallic implications of plots building to a single climax. This particular interruption makes room for the third, most interior story of the play. This central frame is the story of Shaw and Weaver's fifteen-year relationship both as lovers and artistic collaborators. As this story unfolds, we begin to better understand the previous two tales' commentary on roleplay, interdependency, complacency, and the abuse of power in long-term relationships.

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PerformanceReview

This section begins with a cha-cha, a sensual duet danced by the couple throughout which Shaw's face breaks into inadvertentsmiles as she spins and dips her lover. When the music ends, Weaver demands that Shaw strip as she herself retiresbehind a translucentscreento change.Shaw removesher butch apparelto reveala red lace and satin nightie.Herbody, which has previouslybeen read as a male figure, now displays the femme. Weaver is a voyeur behind the screen, which is painted to resemble marble. The translucenceof this "marble"screensuggests a parallelto the irony of Shaw and Weaver's long-distancerelationship and to relationshipsin general:the solid and stable appearance of love which is more accurately a filtered image-love, like identity, is perhaps a continuous shifting of appearances.As Weaver folds the screen,Shawasks, "Wherearethe walls?" Weaverresponds, "Gone,tumbled down... Start again." The term "play"in Lustand Comfortis used to referto games, role-switches,multiplotscripts,and theatrical artifice. Weaver's constant demand to change the game is a call not only for new scripts and new role-plays,but also for new definitionsof desire. It is not just a fifteen-yearrelationshipthat must keep changing in this play, but the whole concept of romanticlove. As a lesbian couple on and offstage, Shaw and Weaverhave always performed desire in ways that question the subject/ object split inherent in traditional heterosexual representationsof romance.Constantlypopping in and out of roles,scripts,and costumesallows these performersto achieve a shifting subjectivity,one which may not ever sit still long enough to be categorized as one thing or another. Such selfconscious identifications and role-playing have given Weaver and Shaw room to create a female subjectivitythat subvertsspectatorialexpectations and reconceptualizesdesire itself. TELORY WILLIAMSON New YorkUniversity

THE ACCIDENT. By Carol K. Mack. American Repertory Theatre, Cambridge. 3 May 1995. Carol K. Mack's metatheatricalbrain-teaserpartHitchcock,partCalvino-begins with the character of Bessie (played by Natacha Roi) onstage, barefoot,in a fadedblue dress,lookingaroundas if she does not know where she is. She is in a

farmhousekitchen, although Allison Koturbash's set provides only a raw open space with a long, narrow table centerstage flanked by two chairs. The floor is covered with canvas, painted white, and the rearwall is white also, painted to a height of eight or nine feet, making the set something of an abstractwhite box (an image later affirmedby the play's most mischievous prop). "Look familiar?"asks Bessie'shusband,John(JackWillis). Theensuing actionallows us to know thatBessie is an amnesiac,that she was hurt in an accident, that this is the day of her releasefromthe hospital, thatshe has a son named Ben(Nat DeWolf),and so on. John seems a bit belligerent as he re-orients Bessie to her household duties. When he puts his armsaroundhis wife and son in a family embrace, he clasps them hard and tight, as if they might escape otherwise. Overthe next few scenes, Bessieexamineseveryday objectsthat might triggerher memory-a frying pan, a white shirt-and as she does, a mystery brews. Eachtime her popcor-munching sister-inlaw Doreen (CarolineHall) retells the story of her auto accident, the details change slightly. When Bessiewondersout loud why her dress does not fit, Doreen insists, "You've got to accept things the way you find them." Suspicions begin to mount that Bessie is the victim of a bizarre kidnapping scheme, and when a voice inside her mumbles fragmentsof French,we know she has a previous identitywhich is being kept from her. No sooner do we settle in for a vintage psychologicalthrillerthanthe play lurchesinto a different dimension.Bessie is sitting in a chairon the apron (explicitlyoutside the prosceniumarch)opposite a chain-smokingpsychologist named Dr. Greyson. Bessieis now "Blanche,"an unidentifiedpatientin a mental hospital who suffers from a "psychogenetic amnesia"brought on by a deeply repressed traumaticevent. Blancheand Dr. Greysongo over her recurringdreamof being a farmwife caught in a kitchenfull of brokenthings.Whatwas realityfor us is now a fiction.A new mystery presents itself. The remainder of the play bounces back and forthbetween these two realmsof being, challenging the viewer to decide between their competing claimsto the truth.Backat the farm,Bessie'ssearch for answers centers on the shed out back, represented onstage by an old wooden door leaning oddly against the rear wall. John has given her a key to the shed and forbiddenher to enter.But the door, now and again eerily isolated by John Ambrosone'slighting,beckons.At one point,Bessie approachesthe door and then, as Blanche,enters a momentlaterto the doctor,her armsbloody to the