Presentations, Perspiration and Plans

Oh goodness.

So I did a presentation of my project yesterday. You can see the full presentation here.

Yeah. I don't think it went as well as I wanted it to.
I met with my faculty collaborator the morning before, which I thought went well, primarily because he understands how my frantic, creative, scatterbrain works. I can talk about what I'm excited about and it makes sense to him. Somehow. And I suppose that's why I'm incredibly comfortable talking like an insane over-caffeinated person in front of him.
Presenting in front of a room of people who don't necessarily get that about me? TERRIFYING. Which is a bit sad, given that I can jump up in front of a room of strangers and recite Shakespeare, or even do an improv bit, but I can't get up and talk about the play that I'm incredibly passionate about without sweating like a fool/mixing up what I want to say/sounding like an idiot? GAH. Frustration.

Anyway.
There were a ton of interesting questions directed at me, particularly about gender and sexuality. Marcella in particular pointed out that it seemed like I was centered on heteronormality, given that Lola is with a man when she's a woman, and then with a woman when she's a "man." And it was a bit of a shock to me, because I never saw it that way. I saw it more as her discovering her sexuality while experimenting in how she can present herself, seeing that the feelings she's had are real, and she feels she can finally express them because she's dressed as a man, not because she feels she is a man. It's complicated. Does that make any sense?

Another question was about whether or not I believed that it's possible to get away from the gender binary, given that Lola tries to be a "woman," then gives up and decides to be a "man," rather than attempting to be herself, someone without definition. And what I'm really trying to do is expose how impossible it is to actually fit these molds, but how desperate we are, and how pressured we are, to do just that. I don't believe that there is any way to define gender. I just think that our world loves definitions and hates ambiguity.

Reading through my comment sheets was interesting too. A lot of people wanted to know more about my methodology, (which is hard, given that this is a creative project) and about some of the more scientific aspects, like what genetic factors went into the conditions and the psychology behind it. I found out that a member of my group has a sister with a mild case of hypertricosis, which blew my mind and immediately made me nervous that I was going to offend her in some way, but I guess that's always a risk when taking on a genetic condition.

Also, I talk fast, but I knew that.

And the most surprising thing is that apparently I'm intimidating? Total shocker.

But everyone seems excited to hear what I have to say, a lot of people were wondering why I didn't include scenes or quotes in my presentation. But there's really not enough to share at this point.... I'll have some ready for my next presentation, no question.

BUT the plan for this weekend (Besides taking my sister out for her birthday and seeing Brave. Woo Pixar!) is to do a lot of freewriting. I want to solidify Lola as a character. I've found a ton of character writing exercises that I hope to use, as well as working on some specific scenes that I know I want to use. You'll see it all in a later post!

I'll finish this post off with a couple new sources of inspiration. Babe Bean and Mary Walker. Both amazing cross-dressing and transgender women.

Babe Bean. Transgender adventurer, writer and nurse. Fought in the Philippine war as a man. Was accused of being spy in WWI. Was a sensation and a controversial figure all through his life.

Mary Walker. First woman to serve as a surgeon in the military (before her, women could only be nurses). Only woman ever to receive a Medal of Honor. Was arrested several times for impersonating a man. Spoke out for women's rights and against women's restrictive clothing. LOVE HER.

That's all for now! I'm off to buy presents for my sis!

Please share your thoughts and questions! I would greatly appreciate it. :)

Julia Pastrana and Jennifer Miller

Julia Pastrana, 1834 - 1860

Oh Julia Pastrana. Her story is so heart-wrenching.

She was billed as the "Missing Link" and the "Ugliest Woman in the World."
Her manager, Theodore Lent, toured her all around the world, got nervous that she'd find a better job and proposed marriage. She was quoted as saying: "He loves me for my own sake."

Which of course, he didn't.

She became pregnant and prayed that the child wouldn't look like her.

Of course, it did.

The baby boy passed away a few days after its birth. Julia followed not long after.
Then Lent had the bodies mummified and toured with their bodies for long after their death, until he went insane.

The box they were displayed in.

Their embalmed bodies

The bodies continued to tour until 1990, at which point they'd been stolen by vandals, eaten by mice and generally torn apart.

She was an intelligent woman and a skilled dancer with a beautiful singing voice who suffered immensely.

Shaun Prendergast actually already wrote a play about her, The True History of the Tragic Life and triumphant Death of Julia Pastrana, the Ugliest Woman in the World, which was performed in the dark.  Unfortunately, I can't find any copies anywhere.

A band, aptly named Ass Ponys, wrote a song about her as well:

As did the artist John Kaada:

Something I've found throughout all of my research, is that most bearded women were incredibly unlucky in childbirth. Either they didn't have children, or their children died soon after their birth. And more often than not, the child looked like its mother, hairy and possibly deformed.


Julia Pastrana's story, the exploitation and power that Lent put upon her, as well as her anguish in trying to do something innately feminine – giving birth – is something both beautiful and tragic.
This, of course, gave me an idea for the play, possibly the climax.
I already wanted to include a male character, a love interest of some sort, someone who would slowly reveal his sexism and prejudice throughout the play - playing off of Lola's desperation for love, while showing her that she is more than that, more than him - but I suppose my other ideas never seemed like enough.
My idea is to have Lola become pregnant. She's already fallen for this man, and given herself entirely to the idea of a new, normal life, but then finds herself terrified that the child will look like her - especially since the man has never seen her with a beard, and has no idea of the "risk" he's taken in being with her. She feels like she's tricking him, which of course, leads to more inner turmoil on her part.
When she gives birth, the child, of course, looks like her. She is heartbroken and conflicted, looking down at a child just like her. Then, the child dies and she's further conflicted. Should she be crushed, or relieved?
However, this leads to further heartbreak as the man suggests that they sell the child's body to the circus.

BAM. End of Act I.

Both of my parents think I'm treading on eggshells by even considering this as part of the plot. My dad in particular is afraid of the play becoming about the baby rather than about gender and sexuality, but I would argue that there is nothing more extreme in terms of gender than birth. That's where, supposedly, our sexes and genders are chosen. It's the product of sexuality. And there's something intrinsically powerful about the whole process, creating life. It's also something we're still struggling with now - who is in control in terms of birth? Is it the woman, or the man? Or both?
Any thoughts from my readers? Is it too extreme?

Another person I've become even more excited about is JENNIFER MILLER.

She is seriously gorgeous.

Present day bearded woman. She's a writer, entertainer, professor, juggler, fire eater, activist, feminist, awesome lady. She performs with the Circus Amok in New York (which I WISH I could go see). She's an all around fascinating woman who has spoken out about gender and other topics of social justice.

"I was raised in the energetic, intellectual fervor of second-wave feminism, so I was surrounded by peers who were making me reflect on what it meant to be afraid of what other people were thinking. I was encouraged to be strong in the face of that."

 "I tend to teach in areas that involve making theatre that involves the world around us. I tend to direct more politically oriented work or work that might have to do with some kind of social justice. We’re exploring ways to explain what’s happening in the world today."

"In Circus Amok and in the teaching work I do, we try to support the labor and creative, intellectual and artistic work of women in any way we can."

 I'm going to try to get in contact with her. I want to pick her brain.

I love the dress. And the lady. Oh goodness. Be my friend, Jennifer Miller, pretty please?

"I just figured I could never have a normal life."

As I expressed in my last post, Jane Barnell is fantastic and has become an endless source of inspiration.

Jane Barnell was known as Madame Olga, Lady Olga and a number of other stage names.

She was born in 1871 and had a full beard by age two. Her mother thought she was bewitched and tried to have her exercised (more or less). Then, when her father was out of town on business, her mother GAVE HER AWAY TO THE CIRCUS. AT AGE FOUR. She was quoted in a New Yorker article in 1940 saying: "I never been able to find out if Mamma got any  money for me or just gave me away to get rid of me....She hated me, I know that." The circus moved to Germany, where she got sick with typhoid fever, so they ABANDONED her and her father somehow tracked her down. This is all before she was ten years old. Then her father gave her to her Native-American grandmother (did I mention she was part Native American?) where she worked on a farm until she decided she wanted to be a nurse and started SHAVING. Yes indeed. When the money didn't end up being enough, she joined the circus again at age 21.

Her on families:
"Every family of a freak I ever heard of was the same. I've known families that lived off a freak's earnings but wouldn't be seen with him."

She had four husbands(!!!!)

1. They had two children, both of which died at infancy. Then her husband died. "After that, I never got any more pleasure out of circus life. I had to make a living, so I kept on. It's been root, hog, or die. When I got sick of one outfit, I moved on to another. Circuses are all the same – dull as dishwater."
2. She married a balloonist who was killed. She never knew how, she just knew he was killed.
3. "That one treated me shamefully... If he was in a bottle, I wouldn't pull out the stopper to give him air. I taken out a divorce from him the year before I and Mr. O'Boyle (#4) got married."
4. Mr. O'Boyle, an ex-clown and circus "talker", was obsessed with the circus and loved it. 

She also had a cat, a large white Persian cat, whom she loved. "To an animal, if you're bearded, it don't make no difference."

She was incredibly famous and toured all over the place. She was invited to lavish parties, where she went dressed in beautiful clothes. "...I guess I was a curiosity to them. Some of them sure were a curiosity to me. I been around peculiar people most of my life, but I never saw no woman like them before."

She starred in the movie Freaks in 1932, starring as, you guessed it, the bearded woman.  SHE HATED IT. She thought it was "an insult to all freaks." She never worked in Hollywood again.

Browning, the director of the film, and some of the cast – most of which were real "freaks." Jane Barnell is on the right.

In the film, she was married to the skeleton man, and gave birth to a girl with a beard.

She was very outspoken, a supposed socialist, and demanded her due wages. She actually once slapped a manager who suggested she dye her beard blue, so he could bill her as "Bluebeard."

She hated doctors: "When they get their hands on a monsterosity (that's how she pronounced it) the medical profession is too snoopy,"

She wasn't without her own prejudices, and separated freaks into three categories:

1. Born freaks, like herself (aristocrats of the sideshow world)
2. Made freaks (tattooed people, sword swallowers, snake charmers, and glass eaters)
3. Two-timers (normal people who obtain sideshow engagements because of past glory or notoriety, e.g. reformed criminals, old movie stars, retired athletes.)

 She seems to have been a very sad and angry woman. No obituary was ever found for her.
An old boss of hers once said: "She's the only real, old-fashioned bearded lady left in the country. Most bearded ladies are men. Even when they're women, they look like men. Lady Olga is a woman and she looks like a woman."

"When I get the blues, I feel like an outcast from society. I used to think when I got old my feelings wouldn't get hurt, but I was wrong. I got a tougher hide than I once had, but it ain't tough enough."

"No matter how nice a name was put on me, I would still have a beard."

"If the truth was known, we're all freaks together."

What, you might be asking, are you going to use all this for? Well, when I started reading about her, I began to realize how perfect her story is and I had a breakthrough. I'm going to include interviews with various "freaks" throughout the play, as well as draw upon her for inspiration in Lola's life.
Jane Barnell kept her beard, Lola did not. It's an interesting counterpoint that I hope to use thoroughly. And she has such an incredible VOICE. Her language, her accent (which was described as a slight southern drawl, mixed with slang and tendencies of circus talkers), her ideas, the way she presented herself... it's all so fascinating. She's both strong and broken at the same time.

And she's one of about ten women I want to write about. AH!

It begins!

Hello all!
This blog is my place to chronicle my progress and feelings this summer as I complete the first draft of my first full-length play through Hamline University's Collaborative-Research program.

So. How to begin. The play is about a young bearded woman who makes the choice to shave her beard and reenter society as a "normal" person. She finds herself moving from one cage to another, from the literal cage where she was looked on as an oddity to a metaphorical cage where she's looked upon under society's conceptions and expectations of gender and beauty.

I've been doing a heck of a lot of research, which is both exciting and boring. Exciting when I find something worthwhile (Jane Barnell is my hero, I'll write about her later), boring when it seems to do NOTHING for me and I spent valuable time reading.

I currently have a GIANT sheet of paper on my wall to write on and stick ideas to as I create the plot of the play.

Lots o' post-its

It's rather large

Right now it's a matter of mapping things out, making sure I have the characters and their voices before I throw them into the world I've created.

I'm also trying to decide how much I want to base this play in reality. Yes, the research has been a great deal of help, but the world of the sideshow is so... otherworldly, that it feels like part of it should delve into the surreal and fantastical. I want to draw upon real things, but find where they break apart.

I'm also struggling with how serious I want this play to be. I've always explained the idea as "dark comedy," but I'm having a bit trouble finding the comedy. Which I suppose will come with time.

Overall, I'm excited and ready for what's ahead!