The Fat That Makes You Stronger

So I caught the first act of Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner by Luis Alfaro at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival tonight. A fun/ny play about Minerva, a woman who is growing increasingly and uncontrollably obese and the people around her who have to deal with her -- sports-minded himself a couch potato husband, her younger very sexually active sister, and her sister's new cop boyfriend. And, oh yeah, Mee Chee, an even fatter Chinese lady whom she befriended at the fat farm. Minerva sporadically writes letters to Mee Chee inviting her to come visit, and sends little treats (ho-ho's, licorice, funions) along as well. Well, Mee Chee does show up at the end of Act One, but she is not played by an actor, as far as I could tell. She was a large shadow that appeared against a scrim, accompanied by some chinky music. When someone asks her a question, Mee Chee answers as an erhu melody. It kind of gives that Charlie Brown effect, you know when the adults talk, it's this indecipherable "hwa-hwa-hwa" sound? I wasn't entirely sure what that was supposed to signify exactly, but somehow, the appearance of the Mee Chee doppelganger is a transitional moment for Minerva, as she actually begins to FLOAT over everybody and transcends her physical reality.

Still being on East Coast time, I couldn't bring myself to stay awake through the second hour of the show, so I may never find out what spiritual epiphanies awaited Minerva, and whether her obesity was a metaphor for something else.

I am feeling a great trepidation about theater right now, I must admit.
The whole convention of it -- the perfectly timed music to cover scene changes, the theatrical writing and character development... I feel so disconnected to it when I'm watching. May be time for something else... but what?

a jump in the pool

OK OK OK! So my show is finished, I went to Japan and back, and I have very little excuse for not having gone to see more shows, except that I'm entirely burnt out and don't want to go to the theater at all. That's why I went to see Headlong Dance Theater's Hotel Pool, because it takes place, well, in and around a pool. In this case, the body of water was located near the southern tip of Manhattan in a high-end luxury condo building called Rector Square.

The show was sold-out a while back, but Banana who has some roots in Philly, had made reservations early on. We arrived quite early on a rainy Thursday, and were one of the first people in the lobby, waiting. By the time they tarted opening the house and shuffling people into the pool area, we were at the end of the line. By the time we reached the performance space, we were one of the last ones in, and had to settle for a seat on the ground, right alongside the pool. There were rolled up towels placed along the poolside, suggesting what was to come.

The piece began with what I found to be an arresting, Murakami-esque premise. A business woman checks into a hotel, but somehow gets lost on her way to her room and ends up at the hotel pool, and locking herself in(out). She makes some frantic phone calls, in an attempt to get the hotel management to get her an actual room. She needs to take her medication and pops a pill into her mouth, when she realizes that her water bottle is empty. Looking around, the only water is... in the pool. Gingerly she kneels down and takes the water up to her mouth in cupped hands. She falls asleep at the poolside. Then a troupe of mysterious water-beings begin an underwater dance that continues throughout the piece, eventually tempting the woman into their universe.

What these water-creatures are, and what they represent, is never entirely clear -- they seem to be emblematic of the spirit of love/fun/life/joy, in contrast to the woman who is coming from a cold, corporate place. Although other stretches seemed lengthy, and there was a whole scene with dialogue in the middle which I couldn't comprehend at all (sound too low, dvd player not working). Plus I got my butt SOAKING WET (like peed-in-my-pants wet --- which is really one of the most uncomfortable feelings in the world). The company always manages to achieve that sense of BIG LOVE that can usually only be created by companies of artists who really love and trust each other. Some of the movement really took me places in their simplicity and repetition.