2023 National Women’s Theatre Festival (Part 1)
The mission of the National Women’s Theatre Festival is to create, produce, and promote extraordinary theatre by women and artists of all underrepresented genders with the ultimate goal of 100% parity in the US theatre industry. They gather artists from North Carolina and across the nation at their annual festival, helping to create a pipeline of extraordinary talent that will revolutionize theatre as we know it.
No More Flowers
Is a flower just a flower? “You be the judge”. This short film presented like a Zoom interaction imagines Georgia O’Keefe’s painting studio. Sigmund Freud pops in to psychoanalyze. After all, he states, an artist’s neuroses can be identified in their work.
One sees sublimated sexual desire. The other likes the color purple. The man sees a war between the subconscious and the conscious. Repressed desires are expressed by the fragrant illusions of female genitalia. Having a baby takes the place of a woman’s desire for a penis.
The sparring goes back and forth. As do the Freudian interpretations of this artist’s motivations. My favorite observation occurs nears the end about Vincent Van Gogh. This feels on point: “no one suggested he was painting a series of vaginas”. Many examples of male-dominated psychiatry (and the related tentacles of religion) lectured their theories over multiple centuries. All of them should be held up for reevaluation is my takeaway from No More Flowers.
Californio
Christa M. Forster wrote and performs this multifaceted work which juxtaposes the development of America with her heritage. The textures and layers are deftly woven and the result is a reckoning of the cultural richness and the complicated conundrum that is the American identity.
Ms. Forster identifies as a Mexican Irish Afro Hispanic Anglo American. That this nomenclature is well explained is one of the many highlights in this thoughtfully organized family memoir. A Californio is a person of mixed blood. Her features are dominated by the Irish gene with her red hair, white skin and blue eyes. Beneath this external layer is a history she wants seen.
Ysidora Pico de Forster is her 19th century paternal grandmother. The tale interweaves her family histories with the merging of the races in our proverbial melting pot. Since her heritage is filled with so many combinations she notes that “many of my people colonized by my people disappeared”. It is a fascinating perspective from someone who recognizes that there are “millions of silent stories dwelling in our DNA”.
Song and storytelling are employed to elaborate individual family histories notably about men. A discovery of a small red prayer book illuminates an all too familiar racial bias. The discovery thrills her and the important persona of Ysidora quietly emerges.
This wholly original work is self-indulgent in the best possible way. Not everyone is able to connect their children’s ancestral history back seven generations let alone paint a clear eyed portrait. That she so effortlessly encapsulates her story while also touching on the marginalization of women and various races makes Californio feel like an essential primer for coming to terms with our collective pasts.
The 8th Annual WTF is running from June 22 through July 1, 2023 at North Carolina State University’s Frank Thompson Hall. Many performances are available online via livestream or prerecorded video.