Pigs at the Trough of Attention
Radiant Theatre
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In the world of performance–and especially the world of performance monologues–such likability is gold. And the Sweat Girls have enough to fill Fort Knox. Like the Sock Monkeys, they make no great display of skill in Pigs at the Trough of Attention, their eighth collective effort since their 1993 premiere I’m Sweating Under My Breasts. They just stand at a microphone one at a time and read monologues from manuscripts. The work is somewhat uneven, which comes as no surprise since the Girls write new material each week (they even create brief pieces on the spot during intermission). With production values that make Jerzy Grotowski look like Louis XIV, not to mention considerable vocal competition from Cafe Ashie’s patrons (there’s a full bar in the room where the show takes place), you’d think the Girls would have to work their sweaty breasts off to make their seat-of-the-pants showcase fly–or even make it audible.
But they don’t work hard. They work smart, placing a premium on genuine forthrightness and vulnerability. Candid enough to make us feel instantly comfortable, these women are still formal enough to let us know that things aren’t just thrown together. They seem to understand that Pigs–which is structurally indistinguishable from readings at an advanced creative-writing seminar–is not an evening likely to bowl anyone over. Rather than employing costumes, sets, lighting, or big acting in attempts to make their work interesting, they let their work be interesting–or not, on occasion. But the performers ingratiate themselves so naturally with their audience that their most boring moments maintain an undeniable hold over us.
While the Sweat Girls exploit the simple beauty of unadorned candor, the Radiant Theatre attempts to create a stylized, poetic epic in White Light, a “speechless musical” made up entirely of dance, movement, and pantomime. Dressed in white undergarments, sunglasses, and white geomorphic headgear (imagine Oskar Schlemmer designing Rocky Horror), the ten cast members execute military routines, Hollywood-style dance numbers, and occasional bits of domestic drudgery.
