Six talented and fully nude performers celebrate feminism in Young Jean Lee’s Untitled Feminist Show (Image courtesy: Blaine Davis)
The Untitled Feminist Show is an unusual one-hour play in which words and clothes are non-existent. The show begins with nude performers slowly making their way on to a white-floored stage, exhaling in unison while descending the aisles of the theatre.
Once they are on stage, we notice that the bodies of the performers (five women and one gender-neutral artist Becca Blackwell) do not fit the model of physical beauty that is often found in glossy fashion magazines. We see tan lines, birthmarks and skin folds on bodies of varied sizes and shapes and this only makes us develop a deeper connection with the artists.
Created and directed by experimental playwright Young Jean Lee, the show played at the Harbourfront’s Fleck Theatre from February 12 to 15 as part of this year’s World Stage series. Lee succeeds in capturing the curiosity of the audience members through the various scenes of the play and also makes them question the true meaning of feminism.
Since there are no conversations, the artists use gestures, facial expressions and dance to communicate with the spectators.
The show involves different scenes – some that puzzle us and others that make us laugh. In one of the first scenes, Amelia Zirin-Brown aka Lady Rizo plays the role of a witch and is seen stirring what seems to be an imaginary cauldron filled with a magic potion. She then puts a spoonful in her mouth and adds a missing ingredient to make it tastier: a strand of hair from her head. She then pretends to pluck out some pubic hair and adds it to the invisible cauldron before deciding the potion is finally ready.
A scene from Untitled Feminist show where performers dance holding pink parasols (Image courtesy: Julieta Cervantes)
The scene quickly changes and the performers dance around holding pink parasols like little girls in a fairy tale. One by one, the dancers are tricked by the witch and her helper (played by queer downtown performance artist Katy Pyle) into giving up their frilly parasols.
There are a couple of instances when we get to hear the voice of the performers – for example when performer Madison Krekel sings a song at the top of her lungs using only the words la-la.
The play also has a comic element to it which is revealed when Zirin-Brown makes eye contact with some of the men in the crowd and promises to satisfy their sexual fantasies by performing sex acts in true clown style.
After a few minutes of watching the play, we forget that the performers are naked and instead focus our attention on the graceful dance moves and the various emotions they portray – love, anger, shame, sadness etc.
With rhythmic beats playing in the background, some scenes show the performers doing things that women are usually expected to do. These include scrubbing floors, nursing babies and changing diapers. In another scene, the women jiggle their bodies in time with the music and imitate an orgy.
The troupe also stuns the audience with a slow motion wrestling match scene during which an excited Jen Rosenblit gets off the stage, shakes her hair and brushes her body against some of the viewers. While watching these scenes, we see the performers as women who can be anything they want, whenever they want without silently conforming to societal rules and standards.
Untitled Feminist Show inspires us to reflect on the concepts of gender, beauty and power. Lee’s play also leaves the question of feminism open for people to think about what it really means to them.
Check out the schedule for some of the performances for this year’s World Stage season here.
