(photo by Dora Tuch)
Authenticity and Shakespeare
And Why She She Pop Has It
by Jason Booker
In theatre, things are rarely what they first seem to be. In She She She Pop and Their Fathers: Testament, the people and players and their relationships are presented as specific and authentic – sometimes truthfully and sometimes not – but always within the framework of ‘performance.’
She She Pop, a German performance art collective, has incorporated a bit more reality into this show than their usual, by taking four core members then adding their real-life fathers to the blend. The result is a hybrid of King Lear (as the promotional materials indicate), a confessional where forgiveness is sought and European performance art complete with partial nudity, symbolic flowers and fruit strewn about and some karaoke versions of American songs. Not just because the song becomes an earworm, this reviewer enjoyed the referential use of the Sinatra duet, Something Stupid: originally sung by father and daughter, though written for lovers since why would anything be simple or straight-forward in this show?
