Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Is Marisa Garreffa's show Cured Freudian or feminist?

Performance art almost always seems to contain two main ingredients: an anti-capitalist subtext, and an intention to confront or disturb the audience somehow. This is one of the main reasons I've just never been able to get into it.

Firstly, I don't think capitalism is all that bad. Sure, it's far from perfect, but it sure as hell beats the alternative. Also, I find the confrontational stuff a bit obnoxious, and often boring. Call me old fashioned, but I find entertainment a lot more enjoyable.

This one-woman show Cured by Marisa Garreffa, which is showing at the Blue Room, seems to tick both those boxes. The writer-performer butchers actual pig carcasses during her show satirizing the funeral industry. So it does sound like pretty traditional -- dare I say conservative -- performance art fare. Still, it does seem like quite an intriguing piece.

But what I find more intriguing is the fact that Ms Garreffa, daughter of a well known local butcher, has chosen to feature the cutting up of carcasses on stage. What's her motivation? Is she trying to get back at him or please him? Perhaps a bit of both? It all seems pretty Freudian to me ...

Or maybe that's the wrong way to look at it. It could be that she's a Marxist feminist and she's saying: "Daddy, this is nothing personal. I just despise your politics. You're such a sexist pig!"

6 comments:

  1. You're going to have to go and see it now. Don't despair though, I hear that there's some lovely food after

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  2. Wow. The audience actually gets to eat the supporting cast.

    Surely a first in the, er, herstory of theatre. Truly revolutionary!

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  3. Cured is simply "stunning"! the opening night was last night and it is a must see performance!

    ES

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  4. Cured has been TWOPped.
    http://theworstofperth.com/2012/05/19/weekend-worstoff-201/
    It might help ticket sales, but I'd guess that serious TWOPpers would all be at opening night for such a show.

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  5. Thanks for that heads up. Yeah, that blog is amazingly popular and quite influential.

    I have spent several years of the last decade away from Perth, so I'm "a bit out of the loop". I only have a look at it occasionally. But I know it's been going for ages now and gets mentioned quite a bit on the mainstream media.

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  6. TWOP's like my old Derek and Clive LPs. Incredibly funny at first encounter, nowadays a little goes a long way.

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