 |
Dec 22 - Jan 12,2002 |
Vaudevillian pathos
The Scrubbing Project a so-so musical satire in horror
By Bruce Raymond
Originally Published: 2002-12-01
 |
|
The cast of The Scrubbing Project, playing at the Factory Theatre
|
To quote from the printed program of The Scrubbing Project, currently playing in the Factory Theatre Studio, "In many indigenous cultures, all of humanity comes from the stars. Starworld is where the ancestors come from..." Using that concept as the starting point, three very bright ladies, Jani Lauzon, Monique Mojica and Michelle St. John have created a fantasy about three entities being sent down from Starworld in order to experience life on earth as mixed-blood women. As these three ladies are in reality of mixed parentage, their creation carries with it the stamp of credibility.
These three creators also act in the play, under the watchful direction of Muriel Miguel.
The ladies, called collectively The Turtle Gals, have attacked the subject of man's inhumanity to man in a manner which can almost be described as gleeful. They have taken some of "civilized" man's most awful moments and turned them into vaudeville skits. No horrors are omitted, from the Holocaust to the decimation of the North American Indian. These stories have been told before but never through the medium of a vaudeville show, complete with the Marx Brothers and parodies of some of the standard songs from the days of burlesque. Whoever first sang "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" would never have dreamed that Lydia's strategically placed tattoos would one day list the locations - from Rwanda to Ipperwash - of some of the more shameful betrayal of human rights committed under official bureaucratic sanctions.
The plot itself is barely discernible. The three visitors to earth assume various personalities as they sing and dance their way through the various parodies. The song "High Hopes" for instance, accompanies the humiliation of a prisoner desperately pleading with her guards to let her go to the bathroom. Then there is the pathos of a youngster wondering if her brown skin can be lightened the way lint is removed from clothing by using Scotch tape or by scrubbing herself with bleach. There are preparations for a ceremonial feast, which never really happens and the problem of finding a suitable name for a child born to Jewish and Indian parents.
Page 1/...Page 2
|
| Home / Back to Top |
|
|
 |
|
|
</ td>
