Beast Women
Women have no wilderness in them–according to poet Louise Bogan, at least. More often than not I’ve reluctantly agreed with her: I’ve seen more coy confessions than wild experiments from Chicago’s female performance artists, poetry slammers, and monologuists. Though there’s plenty of entertaining rage, terror, artistic iconoclasm, and moral sentiment on Chicago’s boards, it’s the rare performer–male or female–who seems as unpredictable and ruthless as a wild beast.
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But “Beast Women,” a cabaret showcase, promises and occasionally produces just such a melee of monstrous wit: through the end of August, it offers 12 evenings of performance featuring 30 writers, singers, and actors–billed as the “furies storm the stage.” The O Bar’s small basement platform, with folding chairs for the audience (reminiscent of the mildewed cavern of the late, lamented Cafe Voltaire), is an unlikely place for such neo-mythology to occur. But if last Friday’s roster was any indication, “Beast Women” does offer some of the finest savagery in town lately, along with some kinder, gentler pieces.
The other pieces were far less beastly. Singer-songwriter Holly Haylen performed folky, meandering tunes with vague lyrics, and actor-playwright McKinley Carter’s earnest Don’t Be Ugly: And Other Advice seemed a throwback to feminist performance of the 70s. Nikki Jacobs’s tribute to her grandfather and sister, Something From Nothing, was competent but undistinguished, leaving a saccharine aftertaste. And Cheryl Woods paid a brief, self-indulgent gothic tribute to suicide in Lilies. But where were the furies, the thunder and surprise and sudden choking laughter that bursts out when artists break conventions?
