The Untamed Shrews have readied themselves once again to unleash their special brand of provocative feminist theater on the College community. The Shrews will perform tonight at 7:00 p.m. at Alpha Theta co-ed fraternity.
The Untamed Shrews will present excerpts from essays, poems and short stories. In addition to the general celebration of womanhood, the pieces will address the issues of body image, rape and incest.
Despite a performance style that has often incited controversy in the past, the Shrews place the emphasis on the content of the pieces.
"The power of the pieces is in the words, and so it's not really the acting but more speaking or presenting," shrew Amy Palmer '94 said.
The group's present incarnation-which has met all term to prepare for shows- comprises 12 women, four of them new to the group.
Shrew Nancy Toth '96, who performed last term, said she joined the group to learn about different women's issues.
"I just thought [the Shrews] would be interested in how people interpret different women's issues and what those issues are," Toth said of her participation in the Shrews. "You learn a lot from being involved in it."
During the show shrew Lauren Lieberman '95 reads the poem "To my grandmother" in honor of her grandmother, who died last month. Lieberman also reads "The Strangling," a short story about domestic violence written by Nicole Schmidt '94.
"When I read it, I just thought it was amazing," said Lieberman, who has performed with the Untamed Shrews for three terms.
Toth performs the monologue, "I am a dangerous woman," about "being strong as a woman and not being treated badly by men."
In the show, the Shrews also present some group pieces called "I'm not a girl" and "How can you tell a dyke," and one comic-relief piece called "Snow White waking up," which pokes fun at the naivete of the famous fairy tale heroine."We try to have a good mix of serious pieces or some lighter pieces which still have very serious issues and which are just as powerful," Lieberman said.
The Shrews gave their first performance of the term for an audience of 40 students in the Cohen-Brown lounge at the Choates residence hall on Sunday night.After the shows, the group invites the audience to participate in an open discussion about the performance.
"It takes a couple of minutes to get started, but once it does, people are very good about it," Toth said.
The Shrews gradually decide which pieces they will perform over the course of the term, as members bring in whatever writings interest them most. For this reason, the performances have no set agenda.
"The focus changes every term in that [the Untamed Shrews] is made up of a different group of people who have different ideas about what they want to perform," Toth said.
"Basically, we want to talk about different women's issues," Palmer said. "I think that it's very educational for both men and women to come to our shows."
All proceeds from the shows go to the Women's Informational Service, a group which offers support for women. Check the Diversions column for their upcoming performance dates.
