Saturday, August 18, 2012

Loved By You


Tonight I saw the opening act of “Loved By You: A Self-Love Story” at the Dairy Carsen theater in Boulder, Colorado.  This solo, biographical, schizophrenic piece takes us on a journey through the life of a woman who’s been to hell and back and survived to tell her tale.  Written and performed by Lori Shantzis the content of this piece was bold and courageous but the performance but lacked impact at times.  There were tremendous technical difficulties during the show, projectors not working, sounds out of sync with her performance, and clearly the actress was put in a challenging position having to navigate that while also attempting to put on a good show. She did her best to gracefully narrate the films we could not see.

In this tale, Lori oscillates between an overtly sexual Marilyn Monroe alter-ego to herself as a small child, a teenager, and a 20-something almost woman.  We are led through the dark caverns of a childhood wrought with pain, familial abuse, and utter confusion.  A poignant and heartwrenching story centered mainly around this character’s toxic relationship with her father.  I found the story personally compelling as I think it takes tremendous courage to get on a stage and reveal to the world the sorrow we have traversed.  However, as a theater piece, I felt that this performance lacked luster.  It was sometimes hard to tell when she changed character and at times felt the performance was underdone or overdone, words dropped and hard to hear, and a sense that she herself was shrinking on the stage.  As the show went on she seemed to grow more comfortable in her own vulnerability and I subsequently felt more invited into the story.  Ultimately this solo piece is an inspiring one and something worthwhile seeing for anyone who’s ever thought their family was the most screwed up at all, for anyone who’s sought love in all the wrong places, or anyone who’s just downright human. I found this piece to be one of humility, bravery, and insight.  I commend her on her fearlessness.

You can catch one of her other shows throughout this week.

-- Olivia Katz


2 comments:

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  2. This show amazed me because it revealed the complexity of one woman's life. The layers of emotion she experienced and the way they were expressed on stage gave me lots to think about. The production was ambitious and the actress was able to pull it off -- one woman depicting a number of characters from her past, each contributing to who she became. For those of us who experienced challenging childhoods this show has special meaning and gives one hope.

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