●●●●○

Liz Peterson
Tiger Dublin Fringe
Bewleys Cafe Theatre @ Powerscourt
23/09/16

Liz Peterson’s Performance About A Woman is a play devised by Peterson, inspired by her desire to exploit her personal vulnerabilities when creating theatre. Performance About a Woman is performed solely by one woman in a venue with little material distraction. There is a stage, bare except for a microphone, but it goes unused. The audience sits upon cushions scattered around the floor. As Peterson performs she weaves through the loose clusters of the audience. Aside from two costume changes hanging by the side of the ignored stage, and the visible light and sound apparatus of the theatre, the room is bare. The  set comprises of the audience, effectively sitting on the stage.

The performance is formed through a collaborative process between Peterson and the audience. Sporadically, she requests permission to make sustained eye contact with an audience member, then creates an improvised fragment from her impression of them. This improvisation blends with her narration of an episode from her past.

Peterson’s approach to storytelling verges on the confrontational. As an audience member, you are aware that in changing the physical composition of the theatre space, Peterson has also shifted the role of the audience from purely passive observers into that of observers who are also being observed. The dynamic between Peterson and the audience varies with each miniature story as Peterson affects a different persona, moving from challenging, to sexual to vulnerable. Yet even in her more raw moments – as she speaks of her first boyfriend, childhood regrets and her relationship with her mother, Peterson retains her authoritative sway.

The audience are simultaneously conscious that as Peterson asserts “this is [an] autobiographical” performance and that “this is theatrical.” The resulting amalgamation of improvisational dance, anecdotes, a capella singing and shape-shifting contortions, could not be said to be autobiographical in the literal sense, but it is certainly theatrical. Peterson at times embodies concepts rather than roles, at one point writhing between upright and supine positions. As might be deduced from the title of the performance, the play describes a struggle with identity – one that appears to be as yet unresolved. The question of the individual’s right to determine meaning is directly posed by Peterson to the audience. This is obliquely referred to in her parting soliloquy, as Peterson announces “I have had one abortion… and two fantasy children.”

Peterson herself refers to the piece as una fantasía. Fantastical is an apt description of the performance, one created from an imaginative interpretation of Peterson’s past and present reality. The result has been influenced by autobiography and theatre yet differs in form from both.

The featured image is from a performance of the same show at SummerWorks 2015 (Toronto).