SPEAKING THE UNSPEAKABLE: HOW WE TALK WHEN WORDS FAIL
In her powerful lecture/performance Speaking the Unspeakable: How We Talk When Words Fail filmmaker Michelle Citron seeks to unravel the trauma of incest. The precursor of this piece, a more conventional play called Bliss, was seen almost two years ago at City Lit Theater; Citron is presently developing the material into a screenplay, too. The story revolves around an outwardly conforming but disturbed young woman, Dora, whose highly erotic relationship with a married man uncovers a submerged part of her psyche and memories of sexual abuse in childhood. But just as in the myth of Pandora–after all of life’s sorrows were released from her box, hope flew out last–there is a sense that beyond this woman’s veil of trouble is hope; we sense that she will travel forward and not be overcome by the remembered tragedy. Curiously, this hope is underlined not by the two actresses–Valerie Fashman and Paula Sjogerman–who play the One Who Knows and the One Who Doesn’t Know, but by the serene Michelle Citron herself.
