A show-stopping moment in the Voodoo Theatre Company’s Utah premiere production of Clare Barron’s Dance Nation comes when Ashlee, who is just coming into her teen years, delivers the mother of all monologues that any adolescent girl could ever dream of speaking. Running approximately three and a half pages in the script, Ashlee knocks the home run out of the park: “That’s what I’ve got inside this tiny fucking body of mine and I don’t have to deny it. I don’t have to disown it, I don’t have to be ashamed of it. I can shout it from the rooftops because you are all my motherfucking BITCH.”
In her 2018 play, Barron gives each of the eight dancers a succinct tag to describe them. Ashlee’s is “future president of a post-apocalyptic USA.” After hearing the monologue, one could readily agree that, yep, the description suits her to a ‘T.’ But, there also are adults who portray these young dancers and when actor Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin performs her monologue with unparalleled, mesmerizing ferocity, one realizes just how effectively it portrays the playwright’s intentions to juxtapose the primal ritualistic tensions between a girl’s coming of age and the sagacious irony of womanhood that understands just how complicated at times it becomes to reap the fruits of such a potent transformation. As Ashlee, Darby-Duffin unconditionally welcomes the transformation because she has found her sexual confidence and the power that she cannot wait to unleash on the world. But, the eminently talented Darby-Duffin subtly inflects her performance with the irony she knows that simultaneously thrills Ashlee but also terrifies other girls, most especially Zuzu (“always second best,” played by Betty Kalunga), who becomes increasingly anxious and insecure about her body’s coming of age.
For a complex script such as Dance Nation, Voodoo Theatre’s production did a very good job, directed by Ali Lente and with Jack Cobabe as assistant director. The cast gave solid performances and no question, Darby-Duffin’s brilliant rendering of Ashlee’s monologue offered the show’s finest and most scintillating moment.
Barron specified in her script that the characters, except for the dance teacher and the moms, are between the ages of 11 and 14 but they should be played by adult actors and there is no reason to expect the actors to look younger. Her explanation is worth quoting: “Think of it as a ghost play: the actors’ older bodies are haunting these 13-year-olds characters. (We’re getting to see who they grow up to be!) And these 13-year-old characters are haunted by the specters of what they will become.”
At first, the play seems like any other coming-of-age story, as it features a preteen dance team in Liverpool, Ohio, which is preparing for a competition, by presenting choreography honoring Gandhi. At the start, there are eight dancers, including Luke (“the only male dancer on the competition team,” played by Darrin Burnett). However, Vanessa a/k/a ‘The Crumpled Sailor’ (“could’ve been a phenomenon,” played by Stacey Johnson, who later takes on roles as various moms) exits because of an injury. The dancers are excited to find out whom Dance Teacher Pat (Jason Hackney) will tap to dance the role of Gandhi, which eventually becomes two leads with Gandhi represented in physical and spiritual forms. For this production, Jax Jackman choreographed the routines for the actors, which nicely fit with the context of Barron’s narrative setting. What mattered less for the actors was having extensive training for dance than what would be expected in a full-blown musical. The less dance talent an actor has, the better it would be for Dance Nation.
Beyond the exposition, the play then gradually morphs into something definitely more feral and paganistic. As the girls are rehearsing, one by one, they whisper the word ‘pussy’ and then chant it louder and louder, which foreshadows the transformation the characters are experiencing that pierces through the once-timid narrative. This is where observations became especially telling in this production. No doubt, Darby-Duffin and Laura Elise Chapman (as Maeve, “the oldest and least talented dancer on the team”) were the most comfortable in chanting ‘pussy’. In fact, they relished the creative license to proclaim it with the giddy exhilaration of girls who just found out their powers. Saey Kamtekar (as Connie, “a talented dancer who thinks she should play the role of Gandhi”), Carli Young (as Sophia, “who knows what’s up”) and Burnett (as Luke) follow the lead of Ashlee and Maeve. These five characters relished the creative license to proclaim it with the giddy exhilaration of girls in the throes of transforming to womanhood. But, it also was perceptible that while some of the other actors joined in the no-holds-barred chanting of ‘pussy,’ they did so with less confidence, wondering if being cute or vulnerable innocence would ever be allowable again. Of note, Susi Gigliotti (as Amina, “the star dancer”) refuses to participate and instead focuses on practicing her dance technique.
While not always immediately apparent, the adult actors portraying the girls were conscious that the audience should also see the actors as being aware of their actual ages and just how far removed they are from the ages of the characters they portray. It is this dynamic that truly makes this particular play work. It would be quite fascinating to see a cast with a mix of actors ranging in age from their teens to as old as late fifties and sixties and maybe even seventy. Dance Nation invites a view of the spectrum of womanhood in an ingenious way and, by all means, directors should maximize the impact whenever possible.
During this frenzy of chanting in rehearsal, Zuzu is sitting alone in a restroom stall, utterly terrified about what is happening to her. By the time we arrive at Ashlee’s stunning oration, there is no turning back on the playwright’s call to total ferocity and pagan feralness. This is no longer a tame, gentle girl dance team but a corps of warriors ready to do battle and vanquish their rivals. And, the irony of a dance competition piece paying tribute to Gandhi is wickedly in step with the narrative transformation. Civil disobedience and peaceful marches are replaced by bloodthirsty and lurid gestures. The transformation is complete: at the end, the cast is triumphant shouting out, “I wish my soul were as perfect as my pussy.” Hats off to Voodoo Theatre Company for leaning into the creative brief with earnest ferocity.