DC Theatre Lover
~ Dispatches from the Washington theatre world
Fear and Loathing…and humor and hope
Posted by Victoria Sams in Uncategorized
ajoka, bachelorette, lecture, playwright, studio theatre
Bachelorette, on through July 1 at the Studio Theater, is a champagne, pill and coke-fuelled long night's journey into revelation. The travellers are a trio of "hot" bachelorettes whose envy at the good fortune and happiness of their friend and unhappiness in their own lives bubbles up in increasingly corrosive ways. The play, the "gluttony" segment in a play series on the seven deadly sins, lays bare the forces that feed female self-loathing and insecurity and makes passive-aggression practically a blood sport. Playwright Leslye Headlund manages to make witlessness hugely entertaining. The horrifying cruelties and preoccupations of the privileged white women of Bachelorette might draw similar criticisms as those of HBO's Girls, but that's a comparison I'll leave to those who have HBO.
Oddly, thinking about Bachelorette prompts me to sit down to write about an entirely different theatrical world, one navigated by the Lahore-based Ajoka Theatre Company. It's an odd pairing, but not totally inappropriate. On May 25th, the Atlantic Council hosted Ajoka's founder and director, Shahid Nadeem, for a riveting lecture on activism and theatre and then a discussion of theatre's socially transformative potential and what is required to achieve such potential (for description and audio excerpt: http://www.acus.org/event/activism-through-theater ). The company, founded in 1984, provides free performances to audiences of diverse backgrounds throughout Pakistan, India, and elsewhere. Their plays range from historical drama to satire to musical/dance theatre, and often draw threats and attacks for their treatment of politically charged issues such as the veiling of women, US policies in the region, dictatorship at home and abroad, and Muslim-Hindu relations. The company draws no government support for its productions, and faces continual violent attacks on its actors and performance spaces.
Bachelorette's (and possibly Girls') depictions of insecurities and anxieties around female empowerment, pleaure, and sexual currency suggest conditions of oppression that are certainly distant and differently felt from those Ajoka Theatre Company confront, but they are not wholly disconnected from them. The audience is invited to sympathize with the maligned off-stage character of Becky and then to delight in her power over her reprehensible female friends, but I still felt a twinge of empathy for even the most vicious of them. Their unrestrained tearing at one another – aided by their intimate knowledge of each other's vulnerabilities – seemed a symptom of a toxic mix of shame, envy and a false sexual empowerment. The "gluttony" or excess depicted in the play is inseparable from the emotional and bodily self-control demanded of women by the arbiters of reputation, taste, and respect. But who and where are these arbiters? In our heads? In the heads of those around us?
Human dignity can be eroded in myriad ways: through more easily identifiable overt oppression, but also more insidiously by the trauma of past violations of trust and dignity, which can erupt in both destructive and self-destructive ways. Bachelorette shows us how this can happen in intimate friendships and sexual liaisons, risking some audience alienation but sustaining a connection through humor. Ajoka takes far greater risks with its plays (while also relying heavily on humor to engage its audience), and devotes tremendous energy to repairing the breaches of trust that have riven the communities in which it performs. Ajoka makes a persuasive case for drama over drones! Ajoka website: http://www.ajoka.org.pk/ajoka/theatre.asp
Stay tuned for another post about Forum's magical production of The Illusion and Woolly Mammoth's Mr. Burns and more!
Victoria Sams
Avid playgoer and tracker of theatre history. Fan of pub theatres. Bookstore addict and lover of satirical writing. Perpetually fascinated by questions of translation. Happily back in my hometown of DC bearing fruits of past lives as writer, professor of modern drama and postcolonial studies, EFL teacher, editor, peripatetic scholar of (mis)fortune and more. Happy news (for some) is that my book, Immigration and Contemporary British Theater: Finding a Home on the Stage (Peter Lang, 2014) is now discounted to affordability. Other work includes an edited volume: The Random House Treasury of Poems About Cities Around the World (2004).
Global/Local or "Glocal" Culture and British Asian Theater (article)
The Book is Out!
The Ephemerals and the Eternals
From Global to Local to Glocal
Useful Sites For Theater Lovers
Arts Journal Daily arts news – theatre section
City Paper Theatre Guide Local weekly theater section
DC Metro Theater Arts Theatre News on DC and elsewhere
DC Theatre Scene Listings and reviews of DC theatre
Howlround Fantastic national theater site with interviews, blogs, and essays by theatre artists around the country.
The Inkwell Excellent incubator and connector of new work for theater and for its makers.
Theatre Communications Group National theatrical association and publisher of books and monthly magazine American Theater
Theatre Journal Scholarly journal on theatre and performance – some articles open access
theatreWashington DC theatre news and guide to current shows in Washington metropolitan area
Time Out London Theatre Weekly London theatre guide
Washington Blade Arts Section Leading LGBT newspaper in DC
Washington Post Theatre Guide Local daily theatre section
Categories Select Category Uncategorized (12)