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03.07.12 Woman-Centred revolution (and throw in a good hairdo, too)
XTRA! Arts
Jennifer O'Connor
"And when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed, but when we are silent we are still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive."
The works of poet and activist Audre Lorde strike a chord with Trey Anthony. "Her belief in giving voice to the voiceless and telling the truth in your work has been a great thing for me," says Anthony, who's the writer, exec producerand a performer in 'Da Kink In My Hair, opening at Theatre Passe Muraille.
Anthony, the founding artistic director of Plaitform Theatre, began working on the play in 2001 when she was coming out of a seven-year, straight relationship and dealing with the rejection by family, friends, and co-workers. She's best known for comedy (Lily Tomlin is another influence), but she says, "I didn't have anything to laugh about at that time. I thought I was going to do a one-woman show and have some place where I could say, 'This is the fucking shit that I'm going through.' "
'Da Kink In My Hair was her way of working though that. It makes me feel very naked because it's bits and pieces of my life on stage at all times. It's really hard, because you're exposing your soul, you're exposing your pain."
The play is set in a West Indian hair salon. Six women perform monologues about everything from sexual relationships to self-acceptance. There's Patsy (played by Ordena Stephens), who talks about raising her son and how black men are viewed in society. Sherelle (Miranda Edwards) has discovered that success in the white corporate world has stresses beyond the glass ceiling. Nia (Ngozi Paul) talks about her relationship with her mother and how she never measured up to her fair-skinned sister. Sharmaine (Raven Dauda) is a lesbian whose mother rejects her when she comes out. Shawnette (Quencita Hamilton) is a plus-sized woman who describes being in love and being sexy and not being a size 2. Stacey Anne (d'bi.young) is a young woman from Jamaica who's being molested by her stepfather.
Anthony plays the hairdresser, Novelette, the comedic core of the play.
The play made its full-length debut at the 2001 Toronto Fringe and became the darling of critics and audiences. Each show sold out and it had the highest ticket sales of any show at the festival. From there, Da Kink In My Hair was performed at Harbourfront Centre's Kuumba festival (again, all four shows were sold-outs) and the 2002 New York International Fringe Festival. The current production, directed by Weyni Mengesha (whose resume includes assistant director of Adventures Of A Black Girl In Search For God) has been in the works for about a year.
Dub poet d'bi.young has been playing Stacey Anne for two and a half years. Like her character, she was molested when she was young. "The most important thing that I would like to show through this character is that there's potential to heal and potential to voice your reality," young says, "For women in particular there's almost never any space for us to say the shit we've gone through. I want to say to people that it's okay to speak.
"To be working in a piece of theatre that is woman-centred, women-driven, woman-originated, woman-representing, that is a revolution," she adds.
"To have a black woman giving voice to those issues in the face of fear, in the face of not being liked at first - people are going to be challenged and people are going to see themselves represented."
After Toronto, the world. A production in London, UK has been commissioned for next year, and Anthony would like to take it back to New York.
'You're not going to come out of 'Da Kink without experiencing some kind of emotion," Anthony says. "You can't just be neutral. That's one thing I'll guarantee. You'll be affected in some way."