DARB-TV at Current Space. Photo by Philip Laubner.
DARB TV
One thing was certain from the beginning: DARB TV was not going to be your “normal” everyday performance. Upon entering Current Space each of us were greeted at the door with an anonymous survey that probed us about sex, rape, violation and control. I was asked to fill out the form and then hand it to a puppet. A puppet?
After sitting down, an attractive woman dressed in a cute, oddly-colored outfit took the stage. The outfit matched the hand-painted stage, all brown, prison-outfit orange and green-screen green. It all felt a bit off. She warned us that the play would simulate the crisis and trauma of an abusive and dysfunctional home, and that the play’s disturbing subject matter (incest and sexual victimization) could possibly trigger a negative reaction in some of us. She also assured us that there would be someone to talk to afterwards and that we could – at any time – go to an empty room, called the “safe room,” next to the theater if needed. Her disclaimer ended suddenly with a loud crash, the lights were cut, and she ran off the stage.
Surveys? Disclaimer speeches? And now this? I was confused. My defenses engaged, I was ready for anything. The boundaries were blurred and the performance hadn’t even begun, or had it? Was this theater? Or group therapy on steroids?
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
Performance artist Rebecca Nagle has never shied away from pushing boundaries. In 2008 she disemboweled herself at the end of her one woman show: A Dozen Things I Want To Do Onstage. Fake intestines covered her lifeless form. After the audience clapped she remained still. They waited, still no movement. The tension built, another round of applause…nothing. Eventually, one-by-one people began to file out in silence. There was a dead body in the room after all.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
Part of the allure of Rebecca‘s work is the tension of not knowing where the boundaries are, or where the performance ends and you, the audience, begin. I met with her a few days after the show and asked her about it. She said: “I’m really into social boundaries and making people more aware of them.” She went on to say, “I don’t think all boundaries are bad, one social boundary is that families don’t sexualize with each other, that’s a healthy boundary. But other boundaries that aren’t good are ones that limit what women are supposed to do.”
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
For DARB TV, Nagle has used the format of a children’s show to create a dysfunctional alternate reality; an intricately fabricated children’s nightmare made for adults. Incest? A children’s show? The combination seems sinister, but it turns out that it works as a good, simple vehicle for a complex issue.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
Rebecca, with performers Monica Mirabile (who also designed the outfits), Sarah Tooley, and J Gavin Heck, along with artistic support provided by Natalya Brusilovsky, uses devices and elements that could have been lifted straight from a children’s show. There’s a giant puppet head made completely out of stuffed animals, with a moveable mouth for narration. There’s a character with a paper mache head named Counting Mouth, which is covered in numbers and speaks with an accent that you can’t quite place. There’s even recorded children’s voices that interact with the girls on stage and with the audience.
The set of DARB TV is well thought out. There’s an undeniable attention to detail on all levels of Rebecca Nagle’s work; for me, her attention to detail is an indication of the care she has for her message. She hand-built and painted the set, which includes a stage with two doors, three inset TV’s, and an alternate staging area that also doubles as an audience mezzanine, with a trap door for burying a body.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
The scenes follow the standard children show protocol. There’s a cooking segment where grandma makes a meal with Rebecca’s help. Rebecca has to locate all of the ingredients one by one, and they seem to be in the strangest of places all over grandma’s body? There’s a mysterious bottle that’s lowered on a string that can’t be opened. There’s a puppet show (within the show) that seems to tell an awful truth. There’s also a demonstration of what’s a good touch and what’s a bad touch, which asks the audience to interact and learn together.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
Subversive TV commercials run during the show. In one of them, Monica and Rebecca do a caricature demonstration while Sarah, in mustache, gives a straight reading of the contents of a Summer’s Eve Douche box. In another commercial, which is actually more of an over-the-top infomercial, Rebecca, in mustache, wields a chain-saw and warns the viewer about the un-sightly weight of blood. These commercials seem to comment on, or fight against the status quo of the children’s voices and dysfunction within the play.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
Finally, Princess Rebecca opens the bottle-that-can’t-be-opened, she drinks from the bottle and collapses onto the stage. Fortunately, Sarah is there to revive Rebecca. Sarah is informed by off-stage children’s voices to use the Spell Book, a plush book that just happens to be on the stage. She’s also asked by the voices to pick a volunteer from the audience. A male volunteer is picked and Sarah reads the instructions from the book to the volunteer. He’s asked to just kiss Rebecca’s cheek, but this doesn’t revive her. Then he’s asked to do something a little more inappropriate, which he doesn’t do, but this doesn’t revive her either. The instructions become more and more graphic until Rebecca awakens in shock and angrily pushes the volunteer off of the stage.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
I asked Rebecca if she felt a responsibility for the people in the audience. In response, she said: “Yes, I feel a lot responsibility. It’s the main thing since the preview [show] that i’ve been trying to figure out. It’s a really difficult play, it’s a disturbing play. One of the things that the play is trying to do is re-create what an abusive environment feels like. The dilemma is re-enacting a scary environment while still taking care of people.” In an effort to ease the audience, the cast and crew made little stuffed pillows that smelled of calming lavender, which they offered to audience members. They also recruited an experienced social worker to be there as support for anyone who might need it.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Photo by Philip Laubner
During the show the anonymous notes written at he beginning are distributed throughout the audience. Audience members are then asked to come up on stage, take an egg from the sexy chicken, read a traumatic experience and then throw the egg at a target. I asked Rebecca about it. She said: “I think a big thing when working with people who’ve suffered a traumatic experience is giving them choices. The trauma was such a disempowering experience, the process of recovery is one of empowerment.” People enjoyed throwing the eggs, there was the honest intensity of emotional release in the room. Inside DARB TV, even a simple egg toss becomes empowerment.
DARB TV is truly educational programming. We learn that boundaries must be crossed to examine the role of boundaries. We see that sensations of trauma and violation must be provoked to examine the nature of violence and abuse in our culture. And we begin to understand that silence, or turning the other cheek, is a very dangerous act.
Photo and story by Philip Laubner.
Editor’s Note:
By ignoring rape, incest, child molestation and other popular ugliness, we are only allowing it to be perpetuated. Perhaps confronting the trauma and putting it all out on the table is the smartest thing we can do. The best hiding spots for abuse is in the silence. Solution: Destroy the silence.
Stay tuned to DARB TV, as another performance is expected in Philadelphia in the coming months.
