The soliders wait to be called NEXT: Matthew Ferretti, John Weisenburger, Christopher Tocco, Sean Meehan & Charles Everett (photo by Andrea Varga)

Imagine yourself far away from home, stripped of your identity, doing the exact same thing as the interchangeable cog in the wheel beside you.  Imagine that you are so scared by the fact that you have no idea what’s happening to you tomorrow that you coat yourself with a thick layer of false bravado just to get through another day . . .and another . . . and another.  You’re so panic-stricken that someone will know you for what you really are that you’ll tell whatever story fits best – even stereotype yourself if you have to – just so you can be the perfect image of what you’re supposed to be.  Now tell me: are you a soldier in the middle of a war?  Or are you the whore that services the soldiers?  In Stephen Gracia’s WWII play, Next, the answer is – both.

Kendra Leigh Landon & John Weisenburger (photo by Andrea Varga)

Next begins in a place that’s as unrefined and base as can be imagined – outside a mobile whorehouse that’s been brought to an American army encampment in Europe during WWII.  When we first meet these soldiers they’re mentally (if not physically) psyching themselves up to have sex with the nameless gal waiting inside who, to them, amounts to little more than a body part.  The soldiers discuss how they’ll treat her, what they’ll do to her, and how they’ll feel after they’re done. Frankly, the fact that she’s a person at all is almost inconsequential.  As the Lieutenant says to his men “Don’t you boys feel…right… up to your necks in gunpowder, blood and…pussy?” The truth is, for all the posturing, crowing and strutting these young soldiers do, it all rings a little hollow.  As much as they’d like to pretend otherwise, they’re looking for a way to connect, not merely bodily but emotionally and – yes – even spiritually with the woman waiting inside the trailer.

More of the soldiers’ sensitivity seeps out inadvertently as the play moves forward, despite their every efforts to camouflage that part of themselves.  It seems that when one particular gal – a Japanese whore (set aside particularly for the black soldiers who aren’t permitted to mingle with the white women) – seemed to have gotten knocked about pretty badly by the Officers before even being put to work, the soldiers’ protective sides come out. (You don’t do it to a woman.  Ever. If I had a Jap soldier here, right now, I’d do things to him that would make you sick to be a man . . . but not to a woman.) Suddenly, the women inside these trailers are moved up an imaginary line themselves and are promoted from mere body part to something with at least a little human dignity.

By the time we’re actually introduced to one of these women – “Madeline” (Kendra Leigh Landon) as she’s referred to . . . for one name’s as good as any other – the talk that’s swirled around has made her into something of a mythological creature, both for the audience as well as for young Danny, (John Weisenburger) a virgin with a desire to romance this woman, woo her, and make this moment count for him as well as for her.  The gesture is almost too naive to be real, and yet this character of Danny represents so many young boys who have always gone off to war with their small town morals which often serve as the only reminder of home in the foreign land in which they’ve been asked to gamble away their life.

Slowly, this arm’s length dance between nameless whore and guileless soldier is brought in closer, and the heartbreak of so many of those who lost their innocence in ways too personal to simply toss off as a footnote becomes the story of Madeline and Danny – she, every girl . . . he, every guy and they – every hopeless pair who were ever brought together under horrifying circumstances in desperate need of a little tenderness only to find so much more.  But ultimately – while they’re able to cling to each other for a moment, they’re both keenly aware that what they’ve caught will only last until they hear the familiar cry of “NEXT!”.

Based on Jacques Brel’s haunting “Au Suivant”, Gracia’s touching script is filled with moments of raw truth, not just between Danny and Madeline but between the enlisted men as well; when a Jewish soldier talks of destroying all the Japanese because they’re ruining the world it opens up an avenue of accusations and insults that perfectly sum up the horror that was World War II.  Under Michael LoPorto’s direction the harsh realities of this world are exposed, yet he allows the tenderness to bubble up in the most unexpected of places.

Highly recommended – this play will stay with you long after you leave the theatre.

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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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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!

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• 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
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