Lynn Book
As the audience enters Randolph Street’s performance space, Book seems to be in some sort of opium daze, or perhaps she’s portraying her character as drunk, feverish, or dying–it isn’t quite clear at first. Her eyes glaze and cross; she blinks rapidly and makes an effort to focus elsewhere, but her eyes cross again, and she tries to focus again. Watching her is uncomfortable–it’s as though we’ve entered a fairy tale, have accidentally walked into the secret room of an invalid/monster usually kept locked away. Should we look at her while we wait, or should we look away? This dilemma evokes the problematic issue in our society of recognizing and dealing with illness. As a nation, we tend to look away.
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Throughout the piece there’s a sense of denial–denial of illness, denial of appetite. Like the beautiful set, Book’s monologues do not delineate but ultimately obfuscate, creating a haze of arresting images. Her audience is left wondering where this character is going, or even whether she really cares that she’s ill. She sings a delicate song–half Indian raga, half lullaby–simultaneously as obscure and beautiful as anything else in the performance, seeming to address the stars. But because we don’t understand the source of her despair, we can’t identify with her, can’t feel hope or fear.
