The Silicone Diaries
Written by Nina Arsenault
Directed by Brendan Healy
Presented by Buddies in Bad Times at Talullah's Cabaret
November 14-22, 8pm
Tickets: 416-975-8555
www.artsexy.ca
www.ninaarsenault.com
Photo by David Hawe
Nina Arsenault, I think, is 6 foot 2. She has tumbling red hair that tangles above her shoulders, a perfect waspy ski-jump nose and too-green green eyes. The roundest hips, the longest legs, the smallest waist, the thinnest wrists, the fullest breasts. She has had over 60 cosmetic surgeries.
She looks like Jessica Rabbit and I am a little bit afraid of her.
She discusses, in The Silicone Diaries, how she came to be this way; the passion that drove her to create this perfect, surreal, intimidating woman.
This is not necessarily a piece about making the transition from man to woman. Arsenault did make that transition, but this is nothing so elementary. She instead reveals through her impeccably performed monologues that as long as she has known what she thought was beautiful she has sped toward achieving it with athletic focus. It is her obsession.
Of course I'm obsessed with beauty, too. I'm a woman and I live in North America, and in the darkest parts of my heart where I keep the fear that I may be a bad person and all of the vicious things I've ever thought is the belief that my value is equal to my looks, be they good or bad. My brain and my politics would argue, but I have so many nightmares about disfigurement that it's ridiculous to pretend these things don't matter to me.
A sexist society created the idea that though beauty was a requirement for a woman's success, it was a shallow and frivolous thing to pursue. This is a particularly Western shame, and throughout the course of the show Arsenault compares herself to a Geisha, a type of woman she believes is respected for her dedication to beauty at all costs. Here, the men in charge feel a deep guilt for being aroused by beauty in all of its arresting power and not by puritan-valued wifely qualities like compassion, sweetness or warmth.
If this idea is changing, and I believe it is, Arsenault is at the front line. It was wonderful to discover, throughout the course of this remarkable show, that the woman so initially intimidating to me is open, honest, funny and brilliant.
The Silicone Diaries, based on a series of columns Arsenault wrote in Fab Magazine, contains stories that may seem grotesque or frightening to those uninitiated to the pursuit of beauty through plastic. Though I am an enthusiastic visitor to web sites like awfulplasticsurgery.com, I was shocked to learn that silicone would try to seep out through the injection holes by which it found its way in, or that it remained malleable under the flesh for days. There are clinics in Mexico and San Francisco, there is a lover in the shape of Mr. Burns, there is a living anime doll, and there is Nina at the centre of it all in a see-through dress with nothing to hide. The storytelling is vivid and unique. It makes a community of surgery devotees accessible, and though the feeling of the show is intimate (Talullah's Cabaret is small, packed, and there are drinks being served) it is the opposite of confidential. Arsenault is proud of her surgeries, proud of who she is and how she got there.
I had seen a shorter version of the show some years ago at a revue called Avant Vardeville at the Theatre Centre. It was then a frank discussion of the mechanics of her surgeries. I thought it was fascinating, but Arsenault herself is the real attraction. This new version, with its extreme emotional connect, gives the viewer the gift of the performer's humanity. This gift is why we go to the theatre.
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REVIEW: The Silicone Diaries, Review by Aurora Stewart de Peña
Jacob Zimmer is Talking to Chris Dupuis
I caught up with Small Wooden Shoe Artist Director Jacob Zimmer to chat about Dedicated to the Revolutions, a show he's been working on for over three years which opens at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre this week.
Dedicated to the Revolutions plays March 31st through April 12, 2009 at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre
Produced by Small Wooden Shoe with the assistance of One Yellow Rabbit's High Performance Rodeo and in association with Buddies in Bad Times Theatre.
Box Office 416-975-8555
Tickets PWYC - $25 :: Youth / Student tickets $15
Buddies In Bad Times Theatre, 12 Alexander Street, Toronto
artsexy.ca
smallwoodenshoe.org
Dedicated to the Revolutions is created by: Frank Cox-O'Connell, Chad Dembski, Ame Henderson, Erika Hennebury, Gillian Lewis, Aimée Dawn Robinson, Trevor Schwellnus, Erin Shields, Evan Webber and Jacob Zimmer
You've been working on this project for over three years now and it's finally coming to fruition. What does this feel like?
Great. Scary.
It’s interesting how things have changed over the three years, both in terms of our taste and interests and the exposure and profile of the work.
But the long development time seems mostly right – there were some gaps that were a bit long and some that were too short – but I think it’s important for me to have a lot of time and a lot of breaks for thinking. Most rehearsal processes don’t have much time for reflection and I think that might be a problem - or at least it would be for me.
There have been a fairly large number of collaborators on this project through its different stages. How do you decide on who to collaborate with and what makes a good collaborator in your mind?
Everyone in this process were people I first saw in other work and then met with and talked. They are all people who make their own work, which is very important for me. And then it’s a matter of creating an interesting and productive rehearsal hall that I believe will lead to an interesting and productive performance.
In terms of what makes a good collaborator - I think generosity and curiosity are vital. It’s a generosity to listen and follow as well as lead and propose - to be able to understand what’s happening and how to contribute to that. Patience and understanding are also very important.
I’ve been absolutely blessed on this project to work with many of my favorite artists in the city who have brought so much to the work.
I'm curious to know in particular about your relationship with your collaborator Trevor Schwellnus; specifically because designers are often the ones who have the least collaborative relationship to a traditional process. Can you talk about how you work together and what your particular process of design is?
The shows take a huge jump once we’re in the world that Trevor creates. They a beautiful and idiosyncratic and perfect for the work.
I trust Trev so much, and he makes proposals for the work in such a great way that we’ve ended up with a pretty unique process. It’s one I’m having a hard time describing. He’s in the room pretty early and has been involved in every show so we can get to the heart of things pretty quickly. We talk about big ideas and overall aesthetic values early and then once we’re in the theatre things just come to life under his eye.
He also brings a lot of thought and contribution to what we do on stage and is often our go to for a “bullshit meter” in terms of science and tech.
And he does amazing things with rope. Other people like tape, he goes with rope.
Some critics (who shall remain nameless) have described your work as "Post Modern". Do you see what you do as part of the Post Modern Period? Why or why not?
I get it, even if I disagree a bit and quibble about the typesetting (“postmodern” v. “post-modern” v. “post modern”.)
The postmodern turn in artistic and intellectual pursuits was vital. Deconstruction, poststructuralism, Critical Theory, and relational theories have been very important to me (and I think the to world.) So I am certainly a child of it.
That being said, I think this work in particular is an attempt to get past some of my issues with the hard lines and to generate proposals and engagement instead of only critique and pulling apart.
Aesthetically I get it too - though again, I think we want to move past some of the trappings (traps.) We avoid irony (we mean what we say, we also mean other things) and think about clarity, humour and pleasure for the audience a bit more then comes to mind with “postmodern theatre.” But again, I have a history with and deep influence from that tradition.
While were on the subject of critics, I've read some writings about your work that, while positive make me feel like the critic "just doesn't get it". What guidelines would you give people writing about your work to understand and talk about it?
I don’t think I can give guidelines. Part of what is nice about Dedicated to the Revolutions is that there are many levels to take the show, different ways to “get it”.
It’s true that some reviews (which are often so short and written so quickly after the show) focus on the humour and songs, and I’m ok with that - or at least I’d rather that then the “you won’t enjoy it, but it’s good for you” reviews. Reviews in this day and age are pointers rather than deep commentary. I’m happy if people show up and have to make up their own minds.
And I think there certainly is a role and a desire for deep commentary - but that requires space and reflection that I don’t feel the print reviewers have - and may mean that that kind of work happens after the show closes.
Maybe the only guideline is to think “What if they meant all of that?”
Song are a very important part of your performances, which is also a commonality in other artists working in a similar style like STO Union. What do you think song brings to the work?
They hold some of the emotional content and some of the humour. They are a different way of thinking through and talking about the issues of the show. And we like singing them and people respond to them – music is nice.
What do you think the 8th Revolution will be? Any sense when it's on the horizon? Is it already happening?
Maybe? Quantum and Nano and Bio tech all seem like “next things” - but I think it’s really hard to predict what will effect our lives and when. These revolutions often took decades to be noticed on a everyday scale.
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Fewer Emergencies and Singhski at Summerworks by Evan Webber
Fewer Emergencies
by Martin Crimp
Directed by Brendan Healy
Presented by Mitch
Featuring Ken Mackenzie, Vahid Rahbani, Erin Shields, Andrew Pifko
Singhski is Chad Dembski and Rebecca Singh
Maybe the good Pastor's shadow is still covering our bright city, or maybe it's the start of the monsoon season, but I’m still feeling sublime Evil around every corner at SummerWorks. The text of Martin Crimp’s very funny Fewer Emergencies is provocative not so much because of its story of suburban desperation and violence, but for the way it dismantles itself, leaving only people and their hopes as the possible source of the contagious violence they must confront. Thanks to director Brendan Healy, these are people on stage, and its their double nature as performer/characters (particularly in the immensely composed Vahid Rabhani) that makes this show so worth seeing. As characters, their hope is for a more meaningful life; as actors they hope just as palpably for a deeper logic, for a more complete story. In the end, what the performer/ characters (and finally, we the audience) are looking for is a judgement, and this is the Evil in Fewer Emergencies: there isn’t any. Instead, there’s a cautious mapping of the territory of hope, where the golden key dangles always out of reach and the car gets overturned again and again, where the contingency of our happiness is as absolute, and as final, as our ability to do something about it.
Meanwhile, the territory of hope gets driven over by a sparkler-mounted electric monster-truck in Singhski, part of the Performance Gallery series at the Gladstone. In just under ten minutes, Rebecca Singh and Chad Dembski simply, effortlessly, even childishly show us how ‘Things used to be better’, while nimbly keeping themselves clear of the black hole of nostalgia. In doing so, they manage to renew our faith in the power of strangeness. It’s hard to say what you’ll find when you go, because the set-list of their performance (which is likely to include ‘internet poetry’ and Sun-Ra-inspired costumage) is mutable. Though it's sure to stay essentially, refreshingly, weird.
Fewer Emergencies plays at the Factory Studio Theatre
Tue Aug 12 6:00pm
Wed Aug 13 6:00pm
Thu Aug 14 10:00pm
Sat Aug 16 4:00pm
Singhski is being presented as part of the Performance Gallery at the Gladstone Hotel
Every night 7:00-9:00pm
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