Sowelu Theater
Portland, OR
503.730.9066
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Reviews: Headless by Lea Floden, 2000
Willamette Week says: ""Even as the freakish body sets our own (relative) normality in reassuring relief, it makes us suddenly conscious of our own deviance, be it physical or psychological." —Mark Dery, The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium
American culture has always been a balancing act between the puritanical forces of conformity and the unlidded voices of the individual. In a culture that has hypnotized the world with happy faces and happy meals, there remain Coney Islands of the mind, places of dissent and exile, places to be the freak in the herd.
Carnivals and freakshows have long been the reigning metaphors of dissent in American culture. Though the circus and Gypsies play similar roles in Europe, there's something darker in the American psyche... dark as the smoked-glass windows of taverns, where the sin of drinking is hidden from sight.
Certainly, darkness hovers over Tod Browning's Freaks, William Lindsay Gresham's underrated Nightmare Alley, and in the carnival scenes in E. L. Doctorow's Loon Lake. But past the danger and fear of the unknown there lies a fun-house mirror reflecting ourselves, just as we're reflected in the tavern's black window. "Though we stand on the other side of the footlights," writes Mark Dery, "we're freaks as well, in the sense that we have internalized the cultural codes that make a freak."
Set in the dustbowl plains of the Midwest, Lea Floden's new play Headless is an exciting addition to the literature of freakshows as agents of transformation and transcendence. Frank, the scion of a tragic, wealthy family, stumbles into a carnival after leaving the funeral of his father. Having reached this literal midway, he encounters a headless woman in a tent show, who calls up vague memories Frank's spent a lifetime burying.
For reasons still murky to him, Frank shakes off the shackles of his family name and holdings and follows the headless woman who has mesmerized him. The headless woman, Net, is in reality a strongheaded woman who is forced to pretend to be "headless" to hide her identity because of a murder. She's also the mother of two little girls: Crystal, a scrounge-and-scratch urchin who tears tickets at the carnival, and China, an epileptic seer who is banished from the midway because of her powers.
It's China--a 6-year-old cartomancer whose dolls are stillborn freaks in a pickle jar--who alerts Frank to his fate. From a cast of cards on her bed, she informs him that her mother is his destiny. What follows is a journey into darkness where both Frank and Net must travel to find salvation from the past.
Floden's world is an odditorium of scarred souls: gaunt carnies, damaged showgirls and the eternal mob of gawkers. Floden's language sings with the poetry of midway slang and the authority of a serious playwright. Headless is non-linear, anachronic, a seamless weave of dream and memory that snares the present. The play is also a mystery, as Frank and Net both are burdened with guilt and memories of murders. The parts they played in the remembered crimes are slowly revealed as they inch their way toward deliverance.
Director Barry Hunt has honored Floden's new work with a near-faultless production. With Sowelu's most adventurous set to date, Hunt has conjured up a sideshow world where one almost smells the bite of dung, spun-candy and sweat in the air. String lights and a banner line hung with the primitive portraiture of the attractions (the Snake Woman, The Headless Woman) fly above a revolving stage. Hunt's direction is tight, and the action shifts effortlessly between Floden's fragments of time.
As Frank, Chris Harder gives another powerful performance in a career of such work. With the chiseled angularity of William S. Hart, Harder is peerless in communicating injured innocence and melancholy. He leads Frank from the incomprehension of a painful past and of his obsession for Net to a moment of startling revelation. Harder is an actor unafraid to risk everything on stage, which makes him a bit of a freak in this community. As Net, Lesia Gallimore gives the character a quiet, understated reading that perfectly counterpoints Harder. As her daughters, Michelle Hasson and Lauren Hasson give mature performances for two so young.
The rest of the cast is equally strong. Kelly Tallent makes a commanding Snake Woman, a dirty-blond in a mingy dress who crawls the midway when not exhibited in her tent. Nathan Hughes is carny incarnate, whether swallowing fire or driving nails in his head. Lorraine Bahr is excellent as two separate demons who haunt Net and Frank, while Kit Koenig and Kevin-Michael Moore brilliantly take on the leering, luck-soured and drab townsfolk who crowd the carnival.
Lea Floden has offered a memorable tour of the tent shows lurking behind normalcy.
—Steffen Silvis