Reading week 3

Reading – Week 3

Bonney, J. (2000). Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. New York: Theatre Communications Group.

HOLLY HUGHS

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Hughs began her career in New York’s WOW Cafe. Her piece World Without End is autobiographical and acknowledges the audience. She talks to specific members of the audience during the performance, as if they were the same person, a friend or colleague that she is showing around her life. She does this by making her life seem like a physical journey along the countryside. She invites us as her unknown friend to look at highly personal times in her life, times when she was confused, vulnerable, alone, or during intimate times with her mother, as well as the day of her mother’s death. Her descriptions are highly visual, reducing the need for a set or other actors to play the other characters. The work is presumably autobiographical, and if not it is delivered in a way that makes it seem so. She deals with shocking moments in her life, intimate moments, and ones she cannot forget. Hughs goes from present to past in the blink of an eye and the piece is very fast paced. She discusses a cafe that she spent golf nights with her parents, her childhood memories of a dying grandfather, a controversial point in her life when her mother kills a porcupine with an axe so that she can play with it, and even more controversially, the moment when her mother discusses sex with her, resulting in her mother inappropriately touching herself. There are times when Hughes’ stories are touching and sad, shocking and blunt and even cringe-worthy. I’m not sure what Hughes intention is with this piece, but it ploughs through feelings and emotions in a very matter of fact way. She uses metaphors and similes throughout the piece which are very vague and require the audience to work for themselves at deciphering the meanings. Like Gray, Hughes plays all the characters in her piece, yet she acknowledges her audience unlike Gray. Hughes is equally as vulnerable as Gray in that she is playing herself and cannot hide behind a character. This is what makes her work compelling for me.