DO YOU SEE WHAT I’M SAYING?
But for all this research and communing with the homeless, for all the attempts to include the voices of real homeless women, this new script is more a curiosity than a triumph. More than anything it’s an uneasy and unfortunate blend of old and new stereotypes.
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Though these three are so stereotypical and safe, we care about them a great deal more than the two characters I suspect Terry is using to “update” her script: Mychelle, an accountant suddenly homeless because her coke habit got the better of her, and Himilce, the tough-as-nails babe who has rationalized her being on the street as a choice, a way to higher consciousness.
There’s nothing as simple as a story here. The play’s too literal, too cool and clean. It would have been better if, in seeking authenticity, Terry and the Chameleon gang had not just talked to homeless women in shelters but had also spent a few nights out on the streets. After all, when we see those blank faces, how many of us wonder not about them but about us? How many of us fear that if we were ever to find ourselves homeless, we might not have what it takes to survive?
