So many cabaret shows focus on the musical past that listeners may not be prepared for an evening that stares fearlessly into the future.
You won’t hear love songs by Rodgers and Hammerstein, in other words, in the “Beast Women 2009 Summer Series,” an avant-cabaret performance that applies a 5,000-watt jolt of electricity to an art form that needs it.
Not that there’s anything wrong with retrospectives of Burt Bacahrach tunes or tributes to Ethel Merman. But the Beast Women, an intrepid troupe of Chicagoans of various ages, prefer to go for the jugular. Searing soliloquies, tear-your-heart-out monologues, “tribal fusion” belly dance, post-modern burlesque — the Beast Women drag cabaret (literally) kicking and screaming into unconventional territory.
Some performers prove more accomplished than others. But the cumulative effect of seeing so many women confronting personal truths in far-flung genres cannot be underestimated. One after another they step onto a tiny stage late Saturday nights at Prop Thtr, performing as if their lives depended on it. (The cast changes weekly.)
Beast Women co-director Michelle Power serves as the Brechtian master of ceremonies, sardonically introducing acts by either smiling or snarling at the audience. Part carnival barker, part seductress, she throws the viewer off balance, which is precisely the idea.
Some of the most ferocious work on opening night came from Jill Erickson, Power’s co-director and a high-adrenaline performance artist. At once portraying and satirizing a woman obsessed by the Barbie doll persona, Erickson’s blond-haired, miniskirted character spun a surreal fantasy about Barbie’s secret life as a lesbian. Ken may never be the same.
Though at least one listener regretted that promising Chicago singer-songwriter Jen Stjarna couldn’t make Saturday night’s opener, singer-guitarist Elizabeth Bagby stepped in with aplomb. Her song about renewed romance cast a comic eye on the subject, offering a no-holds-barred description of her lover’s unmentionable personal habits.
No surprise that a performer who calls herself Barrett All dealt in burlesque, but this was stripping with chilling detachment. When she twirled behind blue plumage but showed zero facial expression, was she celebrating the art form or distancing herself from it? Also, Amanda Rountree performed a disarming monologue on the agonies of being “Cute”; and belly dancers Marci Roesch and Laila separately affirmed that no two bellies undulate in quite the same way.
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‘Beast Women 2009 Summer Series’
When: 10:30 p.m. Saturdays in August
Where: Prop Thtr, 3502 N. Elston Ave.
Tickets: $10; 773-278-1212
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hreich@tribune.com
