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WHO'S HOT?
Foxy monologist/comedienne takes a nine-character joyride through the ever-changing landscape of the American female psyche. And the boys love it.
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| "Extreme Girl" Barbara Blackburn | |
December 8 to February 27
The Currican Theater, 154 West 29th Street
(Presented by Kindred Spirits Productions)
Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8:00 pm
$15, box office/audience info (212) 726-8800
purchase tickets on line through: smarttix
Barbara Blackburn is an oddity in our time: a humorist who looks a little like Kim Basinger (and a little like Brigitte Bardot), a skinny honey blonde with a good lower register (to her voice), and a smart, socially-conscious woman with a bodacious humor about female problems. Her TV acting career includes the role of Carolyn Stoddard, the vampire slave of Barnabas (Ben Cross), in the reprise of the cult classic series, "Dark Shadows." But the scars on her neck from "Dark Shadows" can't compare to the scars on her psyche from her brief modeling career in the '80s, which inform "Extreme Girl," her evening of satirical character-based monologues á la Eric Bogosian.
"Extreme Girl" tackles media images of women and the terrain of the American female psyche, but it's not with the touchy-feely feminism of prime time. Blackburn plays a collection of eight women and one man, characterizing them in slyly insightful monologues. Most of the women are girls-gone-bad over society's demands on sexual roles and include a dominatrix and a miniskirted proselytizer for "bimboism." In a clever satire on how men personify expensive toys with female virtues, Blackburn plays a female Mercedes-Benz engineer extolling the virtues of a car (or is it a sex doll?) that is like a trophy wife without the backtalk. She lampoons the subject of lifestyle choice with a character who has decided to make herself French for the glamour and attitude that it confers, carrying the role off with the panache of an able dialectician. Overall, her characters are brazen but not profane, revealing an acute sensitivity to a women's image and self-image, the likes of which could only be expressed by an ex-model. Heterosexual men, unaccustomed to finding such female problems funny, may be surprised to find this show so much to their taste. At one workshop, a male audience member confessed, "I like it a lot. I just can't figure our if I'm supposed to, or if it's just because I'm a guy."
The play moves into unexpectedly thoughtful terrain with a young male character named Tony, a bookie who remonstrates against his own culturally-imposed gender definitions and would rather write children's books. He struggles to explain to a friend that he loves his girlfriend (a centerfold model and stripper who is another character in the show) for reasons that have nothing to do with her breasts.
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Barbara Blackburn grew up in Boston, Washington DC, New Orleans and the New York suburbs as "an IBM brat." She came to New York and "blundered into modeling" for a career in the late '80s that was soon upstaged by her acting. Before "Dark Shadows," she earned a contract role on TV's "Ryan's Hope" as the last Siobahn (a female cop-and-mother trying to do it all). She has since been featured in numerous pilots and on episodic TV (including "Law and Order"). This is her first solo show, although she has appeared in a number of "little plays in New York." She played Edie Sedgwick, the "it" girl in Warhol's inner circle, in "Valerie Shoots Andy" at the American Place, where "Extreme Girl" was workshopped last year under the direction of Elise Thoron. The characters of this show were originally developed in the acting workshop of Wynn Handman, who is Artistic Director of The American Place theatre and noted for his direction of important solo shows including "Drinking in America" by Eric Bogosian and for nurturing such now-renowned performances as "Mambo Mouth" by John Leguizamo.
Blackburn is currently writing a screenplay--a black comedy on the modeling industry--with Geena Davis ("Accidental Tourist," "Thelma and Louise"), who was also a model.
"Extreme Girl" is conceived, written and performed by Barbara Blackburn. It is directed by Courtney Munch. Lighting design is by Dana Sterling, costume design is by Rachel Carr and set design is by Sebastian Grouard.
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