THE GIRLS OF THEIR DREAMS
On top of that, director Joe Feliciano–the “dad” of the ensemble–displays more enthusiasm than experience or sound judgment. The Stronger, for example, is done as a shadow play. A gauze curtain separates the audience from the stage, and a strong light behind the actresses throws their shadows onto the scrim. That’s what the audience sees throughout this 15-minute piece–the actresses themselves are never visible. While this certainly eliminates the need for costly costumes, it also reduces the performers to mere silhouettes. This is like piping the music of a symphony orchestra from a remote location into the concert hall–it just diminishes the experience.
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The White Whore, first performed at La Mama in New York in 1964, is written in that slapdash, freely associative style popularized by Jack Kerouac in On the Road and other novels. The nun, for example, blurts out: “Cheap rouge–get me into the lifeboat, Murray! Incandescent eye shadow–save me, Mama, I’m drowning! Hair brushed for hours to look uncombed–someone help me! Breasts freed from binding, suspended, waiting!” Granted, this is supposed to take place in the final hallucinatory seconds of the woman’s life, but that doesn’t make this stuff any more coherent.
