Daniel McCoy, Cara Francis, Richard Gamboa, & Jill Beckman

Those who are even remotely familiar with the Off and Off-Off-Theatre scene in New York have, by this point, either heard of or seen work by the New York Neo-Futurists. The company, whose work has awarded them the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation‘s Caffe Cino Fellowship and the respect of critics and audiences alike, is known for pushing the envelope, to say the least. Thinking outside the box while creating said box is really what they do, and their latest piece (which is one of their longest, at a full hour compared to the dynamic two minute plays they are most known for) performed at The Living Theatre and incredibly well-directed by Rob Neill, is a tour of fear in a manner that most of us would never think of; but one can only be glad that they did and chose to share it with us.

Anyone who knows me (or some of my writing) knows that I absolutely adore “scary” things – books, movies . . . and theatre. So of course anything having to do with “fear” in a theatrical setting is something that I would want to see. However, what I found when I went to see (un)afraid is that the piece is more about what individuals find frightening; things that make you uncomfortable and threatened, and those fears are things that most of us share in one way or another  – be it claustrophobia, a ghost story, fear of the planet losing its resources, the fear of the concept of death (performed with such raw depth by Ricardo Gamboa)…or the fear of a woman who is running out of time to have a child. The last, which was performed by Jill Beckman and Cara Francis in monologues while the latter balanced the former on her shoulders (which blew me away alone) struck a chord with me, and reminded me that we attach the word fear to many things.

So, although I wasn’t necessarily going to see something that Goes Bump In The Night, or vignettes of the macabre nature, I was being shown personal experiences of the actors in the piece who brought up things that might be anyone’s nightmare. This was brought about with humor, live music, video and audio pieces; hats off to the technical director Lauren Parrish and all of the designers who made this minimal set become so many things for this playground of performance art.

Gamboa and McCoy Fearlessly Bringing Lyrics to Life

There are spooky and macabre aspects, don’t get me wrong.  The performance I saw started out with Daniel McCoy sticking a sewing needle and thread through his fingertips to form a spider’s web as the concept of fear is explained…and the actors used a ouija board to attempt to contact various people who have contributed to “frightening” artistic work throughout time. The choice for the show I saw was Tod Browning, director of Classics like the 1931 Dracula staring Bela Lugosi and Freaks (1932) – and apparently every show is going to be different.

What is another plus of the show is the manner in which people are drawn in to become a part of it. This is a very interactive show, so expect to participate unless you sit way in the back! One moment that stuck out for me was when I had a mask placed over my face and was led into a dance with an actor . . . and then was told in a sweet whisper “dance with each other” as I was paired with another audience member. Soon most of the audience was dancing, and what was at first fun and amusing became very creepy as the music and lighting added to the fact that I had no idea who I was dancing with. I suddenly was treated to another face of fear – well, more of being uncomfortable – but I didn’t mind it. It was enlightening. Even my friend I brought, who made it clear before the show that he did NOT want to participate (and who was, ironically, the first person pulled out of the audience) enjoyed himself because the actors were so engaging.

Francis, Gamboa, Beckman, McCoy

Calling upon a vast spectrum ranging from politics to tales of lost love; images of our favorite horror films or simply the dark with nothing but a flashlight – (un)afraid manages to make an impact on the audience on a myriad of levels. I walked out of the theatre feeling as if I’d just experienced something important -having learned something about the world . . . and myself. To me, that is the mark of stimulating and dynamic performance art and theatre – indeed, one would say it is the mark of a Neo-Futurist.

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Related Posts:

• Jumping Into The Fringe with Daniel McCoy (Fringe Festival 2009)
• < the invisible draft >: A Dense Dissertation, But Perhaps Still Drafty (Fringe Festival 2012)
• It’s Time For Mini-Fridge Elevenses With Kill The Band – Mock Bottom Mockumental CD Release Experience!
• I’ll Take The Soup … Neo-Futurists Serve It Up Fresh At “The Soup Show”
• Win A Pair Of Tickets To The Soup Show!

Try The Soup? (Cara Francis, Desiree Burch and Erica Livingston made it just for you)

First, a joke:

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I’m reminded of this joke because while some folks would think of sex when confronted with the image of three naked gals dipping themselves in and out of a hot tub all night long, some times standing around dripping wet, some times splashing vigorously in the tub, some times lathering up and rinsing off, these women invite you to think of soup instead.  The fascinating thing is … they succeed.  However, if you think they succeed by accident, then the soup’s on you.

Clothes can be a distraction.  Honestly, as a plus sized, that is to say BBW, or more of a big gal aw heck … woman of substance myself I spend a good amount of time each day wondering what will push and pull and girder and bind in just the right way so that I can leave the house hopefully perpetuating this illusion that I was successful in creating in my home and in my mind.  Put me up in front of an audience and they may start deconstructing that illusion in order to figure out, like a reverse sudoku, how I got myself together that day.  Move this here, take that away, and am I still successful?  Am I still nurturing?  Am I still complex, original, devoted, fractured, searching, triumphant?  Who am I really … and do my clothes help you take that journey with me, or do they just hide my MEness from you?

Burch, Livingston and Francis

When we first meet the three women of The Soup Show (Cara Francis, Desiree Burch and Erica Livingston) they are stark naked and unapologetically so.  When a disembodied voice invites the audience to sketch the woman of their choice (pencils provided) those in the audience who actually did the exercise probably took a moment to examine each woman first, not for their naked appeal but for their curves and arches, in order to settle on the woman they thought might be easiest to render.

Further, those who took the task seriously probably felt a kinship with their chosen nude model as they echoed the lines of their body; calf turning into thigh, elbow becoming wrist, breast leading to belly.  And for two minutes you got a choice to either stare openly or create art … but whatever you chose to do at least you got the inital staring out of your system.    Which is not to say you’re not fixated on a certain body part as it moves or sways or jiggles or simply relaxes later on, after all … it’s a naked body part.  But the intelligence of this show comes soon enough when, just about the time you’re saying “Okay, why are they naked?” their voice-overs (a technique that keeps them apart from the audience for just another moment … as close to a buffer as one can get if one is going to be naked) goes ahead and asks “ Why are we naked?” and the answers are as varied as their bodies, as varied as their personalities, as varied as three woman can be.  Turns out they’re not all comfortable with it, and Erica even expresses the desire to be as far away from all of this as possible.  But she’s here … so, the subtext is, if these woman can be here, exposed, talking the straight talk without the distraction of clothing that would only hide or falsify or make small what is big, or make big what is small … then the least you as an audience can do is leave your inhibitions and judgments and insecurities at the door for a length of time and just listen.

The Soup Show soon mounts a Beauty Pageant one could imagine drummed up in the marketing department of the Dove Campaign For Real Beauty boardroom.  Full of truthful snippets such as “Desiree has never been in a committed relationship because she usually sleeps with guys before that can happen . . . also, most straight men can’t penetrate the wall of gay men whose company she keeps for safety and comfort” each woman allows herself to be a contestant in the Pageant of the Real.  One could only imagine the types of lines that would come from the voice overs if truth was spouted at the real Miss America (or any other) Pageant … “Sally Smith is a bulimic ball of overachieving nerves who can’t get through the swimsuit competition without a Valium.  She’s wearing Vaseline on her teeth to keep smiling and glue on her butt to keep her swimsuit in place” being the most benign of things that could be said.

triple moon goddess

Whether knowingly or unknowingly (and I’d like to credit them with being JUST THAT GOOD, so I’ll say knowingly), The Soup Show women echo the Triple Goddess archetype — the idea that every woman’s path contains The Maiden, The Mother and The Wise Woman (also known as The Crone,  but I reject that word  based on its negative connotation).  While the three leading ladies are all apparently the same age (30, give or take), they are in very different stages of their Goddess phase and bring that to their monologues, skits and explorations.   Manifesting the phase of The Maiden Ms. Francis supplies stories of uninhibited feelings of freedom, tosses off uncomfortable spring break moments that border on self-abuse and vacillates between childlike enthusiasm and childish tricks.  She’s both secure and searching and provides some of the more comic moments of the show.  Ms. Livingston, wife and step-mother to a 13 year old girl, represents The Mother; her stories are of needing to guide her young stepdaughter through a minefield of reality TV (that she herself is still addicted to) and raise a “strong little feminist” who “glows from her self worth” while wrestling with the moniker of “stepmother” which, to some ears, is synonymous with “bad mom”. Ms. Burch is The Wise Woman - the smart one; touted as the Yale graduate, the ordained minister, voted Soup Show President and tasked with the gnarly mission of cleaning up health care while standing with shoulders squared as she faces a barrage of questions meant to diminish and demean her as a candidate. By representing all three phases of The Moon Goddess these three women manage to envelope each female demographic, even those that are a bit of a mix (because, of course, no one can be fully just one thing). Again, whether this was premeditated or just a slice of serendipity isn’t clear, but regardless, it works.

In between pokes at their own insecurities and coy praise for their own talents these three strong woman do, in fact, make soup which they at times bottle and then distribute.  They also, save for a few moments when they don tiny robes, remain naked for the length of the show.   Ironically (but again, probably intentionally) the nudity is not the most intimate or uncomfortable, or even the most appealing part of The Soup Show.  Despite the fact that the goods were on display for most of the show I found more to look at in these women’s faces; their expressions telling me a lot more about them than random body contours that have as much to do with genes than anything else.  And these women were never more exposed as when they were submerged in the tub, throwing out some of their deepest secrets. Cara Francis, Desiree Burch and Erica Livingston use The Soup Show to show us … we are not exposed when we show our skin to others, but when we show our souls to others.  By doing both, they leave us with the recipe to serve up our own kind of soup to share with whomever can handle it.

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Related Posts:

• Win A Pair Of Tickets To The Soup Show!
• NEXT – There’s Always A First Time — For Everything
• Be [un]afraid … Very [un]afraid: The Neos Show Us The Many Faces Of Fear

New York Neo-Futurists Desiree Burch, Cara Francis & Erica Livingston serve up a cure for what ails you in this Neo-Medicine show, performing in and around a giant pot of self-made soup. Bottling this soup, as well as a series of elixirs, potions, tonics and products, they heal and reveal the female experience live, honest and in the flesh.

Incorporating ingredients from interviews, living newspaper, personal stories, circus acts and freak shows, the women of The Soup Show ultimately feed their audiences with a question “How far has the women’s movement moved us?” The fierce trio honor the 30th Anniversary of Women’s History Month, and show you why the readers of the Village Voice named The New York Neo-Futurists “The 2009 Best Performance Artists in New York.”

ADVISORY: adult language and nudity.

One lucky grand prize winner will receive:

• A pair of tickets to The Soup Show at HERE Arts Center, for Sunday, March 7th at 7:00 pm

To enter, correctly answer the following question:

Q. Who is the director for The Soup Show?

(Wanna cheat? The answer is at  www.nyneofuturists.org/site/index.php?/site/soupshow )

Email us your answer with your first and last name to giveaways@thehappiestmedium.com, all entries must be received by Friday, March 5th at 10am.

Click here for contest guidelines.

Good luck!

Related Posts:

• I’ll Take The Soup … Neo-Futurists Serve It Up Fresh At “The Soup Show”
• NEXT – There’s Always A First Time — For Everything
• Be [un]afraid … Very [un]afraid: The Neos Show Us The Many Faces Of Fear
• Special Edition Giveaway – Fringe Edition
• Win Tickets To The Unfortunate Honeymoon Of Tony And Steve