REVIEWS
Creative Loafing: review by Perry Tannenbaum
Once in awhile, a production like The Body Chronicles comes along and reminds you of the sheer transformative power of theater. There was nothing especially "cutting edge" about the four playlets, the short poem, the credo, and the slice of mime that producer Donna Scott so thoughtfully assembled and director Sheila Snow Proctor so coherently strung together.What was so magical at SouthEnd Performing Arts Center last week was that so many of the women who filled the house night after night were being exposed to the power of Charlotte theater for the first time. You could hear it in the talkback session that I attended on Thursday night from women who had just laughed at the comedy, thrilled to the affirmations, and empathized with the heartfelt testimonies.
To be sure, nobody was shortchanged at this powwow celebrating the vicissitudes women experience on the rocky road to positive self-image. The bevy of actresses assembled to deliver this beautifully modulated message was the real deal. Mostly the word was sent forth via comedy. The peak here was Julie Janorschke as the failed dieter in Mary Gallagher's "Chocolate Cake." Who else around can say "Hot fudge is for life!" with such authority?
Proctor spoke eloquently without words in "Silent Torture," simulating a working woman's 7am wake-up ritual, from bed to shower to mirror, in a gem plucked from The Kathy and Mo Show. This playful bawdiness was a perfect preamble to the intense climax of the evening, Madeline George's "The Most Massive Woman Wins," packing a trio of transfixing monologues delivered by Scott, Darlene Parker Black and Gina Stewart.
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Charlotte Observer: review by Lynn Trenning
`Body' is a chronicle of substance
If you are a woman, you will see yourself somewhere in "The Body Chronicles."
The five plays, plus a poem and Jan Phillips' "The Real Woman Creed," are part of an intensely personal performance, using humor laced with humility to expose the complex relationship women have with their bodies.
Anorexia, bulimia, gorging, liposuction and cutting are examined, sometimes gently, sometimes brutally. Depending on your relationship with your own body, you will feel sympathy, empathy or fear toward the societal influence of mothers, media and peers. The self-image of girls and the women they grow up to be is at stake.
Mary Gallagher's "Chocolate Cake" juxtaposes an overweight country woman and her sophisticated city peer. They are unlikely soul mates at different stops on similar journeys. Julie Janorschke reveals her struggle through her beautifully mobile face, while Stephanie Dipaolo's barely disguised hysteria belies her polished exterior.
The mysterious competition and inexplicable meanness women often subject each other to is captured by Joanna Gerdy and Kristen Jones in "The Role of Della," by John Wooten. The unique comedy-with-a-twist allows both characters to act out their vulnerabilities and their fantasies of empowerment.
Kimberly Pixton Millar plays the impossibly accomplished Cardio Kim in Wendy Wasserman's "Workout." Millar's spunkiness is irrepressible, but the skit exaggerates to a fault.
Director Sheila Snow Proctor has the choicest role in "Silent Torture," by Kathy Najimy and Mo Gaffney. The grooming rituals of women provide rich fodder for mime. Sometimes you have to see it on stage to realize the lunacy of what has become the norm.
Madeline George's "The Most Massive Woman Wins" is the saddest and most disjointed piece of the show. The action is interspersed with childhood rhyming games, to remind us of where our self-image begins. Darlene Parker Black's struggle as a mother who thinks she has given her daughter the power to succeed and Gina Stewart's desperate self-mutilator are heartbreaking. But the piece is too long, and the lessons too intense at the end of an already pithy evening.
Get there early, sit up front and bring a seat cushion. Donna Scott's production is an immersion experience that boldly confronts the truth, the first step toward health and healing in a society more concerned with surface than substance.
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Charlotte Observer BUZZ: article by Meg Freeman Whalen
It only takes a glimpse of Donna Scott to realize that she is not, as she puts it, “anti-beauty.” Even after a morning yoga class, her mahogany-brown eyes are carefully made up, framed by eyebrows groomed into a pretty arch. Her pale pink nails have been recently manicured, and her hair shimmers with bronze highlights.
“I’ve been a hair and makeup and fashion girl from way back,” says the thirty-six-year-old actor. “I think makeup and clothing are really fun ways to express yourself.”
But, with more than a decade in the cosmetics industry on her resume, Scott is disturbed by the restricted definition of what makes a woman beautiful.
“Beauty is a narrow road that only a few women can walk. What I want is for beauty to open up, to embrace all ages, all races, all sizes.”
This month, Scott will produce The Body Chronicles, a collection of short plays and poems by writers like Wendy Wasserstein and Maya Angelou that explore the burden that “body image” has become for most women.
“This seems to be a topic on the lips of almost every woman I know,” says Scott. “We all have these little voices that are plaguing us—‘If I could just lose ten pounds’—voices that make us think ‘You’re less than.’ When women get together, we talk about our appearance. Women start to bond over how much we hate our bodies. We shouldn’t be bonding over that!”
Scott started putting The Body Chronicles together three years ago, after losing more than 100 pounds.
“I was a heavy child, a heavy teenager, an even heavier adult. I had never talked about weight. That was just the way I was. [Rising blood pressure and a family history of weight-related illnesses prompted her to shed pounds.] The realization that came to me through that weight loss is that I need to be an advocate for women of all sizes.”
Although The Body Chronicles deals with serious topics—eating disorders, self-mutilation, plastic surgery—Scott says it’s done with a comic edge.
“The plays are very funny, very witty. I wanted to show the truth of the issues, but I wanted it to be positive.”
Scott and the cast, with eating-disorder specialists Mary Ellen Smith and Amy Combs, will lead audience discussions after the show on January 19. Tickets cost $20, and all proceeds will benefit Girls on the Run International, a nonprofit group that helps young girls develop self-esteem and strong bodies through running. Changing attitudes in the next generation of girls is, says Scott, what her work is ultimately all about.
“The thing that I would want is that we realize that we have to stop passing this down. If only the young girls would not hear the little voices.”
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