Meet your doom--maybe--with Split Britches at La MaMa

Above: Lois Weaver
Below: Peggy Shaw
Split Britches brings Unexploded Ordnances (UXO)
to La MaMa for its US premiere.
(photo: Matt Delbridge)

Unexploded Ordnances (UXO), a US premiere from famed lesbian theater duo Split Britches (Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw), takes inspiration from Stanley Kubrick's political satire Dr. Strangelove (1964). It works from a similar wackadoodle take on the threat of nuclear disaster within reach of itchy Twitter--I mean, trigger--fingers. A top-flight general (Shaw) is stationed by a desk and computer monitor where he keeps track of time and apparently takes calls from gal pals. Weaver, referred to by Shaw as "Madame Mr. President Sir," initially slumbers at a far curve of circled "Situation Room" tables. They communicate via landline phones, although sometimes the phone rings, it's not Weaver, and Shaw breaks into randy old pop songs.

The situation at La MaMa, then, is less tense than Shaw's tracking of the countdown clock might suggest. Yes, the show itself must finish by the end of sixty minutes, but Billy Ward and the Dominoes's "60 Minute Man" is one of those randy songs, and there seems to be plenty of time for studly Shaw to bop out to that. Yes, something must be done about the impending doom we're trying to track on confusing overhead monitors, but there's lots of time to field a council of elders from among the oldest of us in attendance. And, no, although lined up with other greyheads, I failed to make the cut.

Directed by Weaver and written by the pair with Hannah Maxwell, the show contains clever text aligned like precision-cut puzzle pieces (best delivered by saucy Shaw) and room for whatever unpredictables the elders might bring to the table. (One woman seemed obsessed with the mysterious whereabouts of one Tiffany Ariana Trump, offspring of Marla Maples and POS...oops, I mean, POTUS. Now that I think about it, Tiff does seem to have been out of the public eye for a suspiciously long time...hmmm.)

Unexploded Ordnances (UXO) is more chuckle-provoking and captivating than Kubrick--well, of course! it's lesbian!--with the additional benefit of encouraging the audience to determine not only how the play will go but also, you gotta hope, how the rest of our lives will go. Folks came up with some really good stuff!

Part of The Public Theater's now-closed Under the Radar Festival, and originally scheduled to end last weekend, Unexplode Ordnances (UXO) fortunately continues tonight, Saturday, at 8pm and Sunday at 4pm. For information and tickets, click here.

La MaMa -- Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 East 4th Street (between Bowery and Second Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Subscribe in a reader

Lois Weaver's Tammy WhyNot brings fun for all ages

Lois Weaver as Tammy WhyNot with three of her
"sexy senior divas," the WhyNets, singing backup
(photo: Jonathan Slaff)

Lois Weaver brings fun for all ages in What Tammy Needs to Know about Getting Old and Having Sex: The Concert Tour, (November 6-23 at La MaMa). The veteran, beloved performance artist from Split Britches becomes twangy alter-ego Tammy WhyNot--part-time country-western singer, part-time researcher in senior centers from Zagreb to Chelsea. (Tammy even landed in the place where I take my yoga and Zumba classes, recruiting a few of her cast members, but I missed my chance!) Her topic of deep study (aka, "intense porch-sitting")? Sex in the golden years.

The marvelous WhyNets
dance choreography by Stormy Brandenberger.
Foreground, left to right: Carmen Estrada, Jorge Escalera and Dora Chu
(photo: Jonathan Slaff)

Weaver with Peggy Shaw
(photo: Jonathan Slaff)

The hour-long variety show is a charmer--a little sugar, a little spice. Weaver doesn't so much break the theatrical fourth wall as completely ignore it, with her disarmed audience, spanning many decades in age, contributing nearly as much fresh hilarity to the content as she and co-writer/Head of Security Peggy Shaw has.

Of Tammy's songs, The Time I've Wasted, a sad tale of KMart shopping "to fill the shopping cart I call my heart" might be my favorite, but it's hard to choose. But the greatest thing about Tammy is her generous heart and her welcome to a stageful of colorful seniors--like dancers Jorge Escalera and Carmen Estrada who will wow you with their spirit and talent.

There's no resisting Tammy. Let yourself go! You have until November 23 to get your tickets--and your sexy on--right here.

La MaMa
First Floor Theatre
74A East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue), Manhattan
(map/directions)

"Ruff": Peggy Shaw rocks Dixon Place

Watching Peggy Shaw perform Ruff--her new one-woman show at Dixon Place for PS 122's COIL festival--offers an intimate, affecting lesson in empathy. A legend in queer, progressive theater, the much-beloved Shaw suffered a stroke in 2011. This hour-long show is her comeback--a marvelous one--and a way of sharing what it feels like to know that some memories and resources that made you what you are are now unretrievable.

What remains, as Shaw performs it, races by in a stream of consciousness and digressions that are Shaw's but quickly become the audience's, too. As if I'd had the stroke, I found myself struggling to retain the memory of specific words--explication, quips, tales, often amusing--while sartorial details and props (one of which, a brown-and-white wingtip men's shoe, I briefly held for Shaw), body language, facial expressions, shadowy video imagery, music and song easily zapped into my brain and hunkered down. In fact, Shirley Ellis's tongue-and-memory-twisting novelty hit from the 1960's, "The Name Game," became last night's earworm, finally dislodging this morning.

Shaw pivots from tender butch to stage-ruling rock star to slightly mystified stroke survivor who needs a trio of monitors to recall her intricate lines. The audience rides these rhythms and moods, grateful that we occasionally get to see those monitors, too--we sometimes need them--and even more grateful that Shaw has let us into her experience of loss.

Here's a 2010 video clip of Shaw talking about women's roles in theater.


One more thing, a special announcement from Dixon Place founder Ellie Covan: Shaw--who won PS 122's 2011 Ethyl Eichelberger Award--can now also boast that DP's theater has been named for her.

Directed by and co-written with Shaw's partner, Lois Weaver, Ruff runs through Saturday evening at Dixon Place. For a schedule of remaining shows and ticketing information, click here.

Dixon Place
161-A Chrystie Street (between Rivington and Delancey Streets), Manhattan
(map/directions)

Peggy Shaw returns to the stage at COIL

Peggy Shaw

Certain to be a highlight of Performance Space 122's COIL Festival, Ruff marks the return to the stage of the great Peggy Shaw--actor, producer and playwright--since her 2011 stroke.

Co-presented with Dixon Place,

Ruff pays tribute to the host of crooners, lounge singers, movie stars, rock and roll bands and eccentric family members who have kept Shaw company, living inside her, for the past 68 years. Guided by longtime collaborator Lois Weaver, Shaw throws off the stigma of age and embraces the joy—and necessity—of creating new work, post-stroke, aided by new technology and even deeper courage. Shaw is the recipient of the 2011 Ethyl Eichelberger award.

See Peggy Shaw in Ruff, January 10, 16, 18, 19 at 7pm; January 11, 19 at 10pm; January 12 at 6pm; January 15 at 9pm. For more information and ticketing, click here or call 212-811-4111.

Dixon Place
161-A Chrystie Street (between Delancey and Rivington Streets), Manhattan
(directions)

MAP Fund announces latest grantees

dancer-choreographer Reggie Wilson

Reggie Wilson, Ralph Lemon, koosil-ja, Joanna Haigood, DD Dorvillier, Yasuko Yokoshi, Peggy Shaw, Sharon Bridgforth, and Anthony Braxton are among 41 artists working in performance disciplines who have just been awarded grants--ranging from $10,000 to $45,000--from Creative Capital's MAP Fund.

To learn more about the MAP Fund, click here.

To learn more about this year's grantees and their projects, click here.