>>PREVIEW
DOUGH: THE POLITICS OF MARTHA STEWART
Ground Zero Theatre and FireBelly Theatre
Written by Lindsay Burns
Runs until March 4
Pumphouse Theatres
"I’ve always found it interesting that nobody likes her. Even people who like her don’t really like her!" And so actor-playwright Lindsay Burns puts her finger on the source of her – and our – fascination with the Queen of Good Things.
Martha Stewart has become more than just a woman. Her esthetic has reached far beyond cakes and place-card holders. Martha™ is a marker of North American culture, conveying a standard of perfectionism that women in particular have become obsessed with.
Dough: The Politics of Martha Stewart, Burns’s new solo show, is a guided tour through the lives of nine women who are all struggling to create something flawless, in the style of Stewart. "It’s about perfectionism, about the idea of consumption to try and fill emptiness," says Burns. "Mainly where I find that we as women are getting into trouble is that we have this picture in our head of what life’s supposed to look like – but it doesn’t exist."
Perhaps like a picture out of Martha Stewart Living magazine? "We keep getting disappointed by the picture of reality instead of accepting reality," says Burns. "We don’t want to give up the picture in our head, because it’s better lit, and there’s a wind machine and I get airbrushed. And it’s like, ‘No, that’s not actually life and it’s not helping us.’"
Dough, Burns’s fourth play to be staged in Calgary, started out under the working title Staff of Life, and pivoted around bread-making terms as titles for each female character’s vignette. Still, Burns found it lacked a certain "hook." How could she engage her audience with something familiar, without abandoning her original inspiration?
"I was with my husband (Grant Linneberg, also a local actor), who was working the Stratford Festival, and I was on a sort of sabbatical there," she recalls. "I was walking around the lake one day and I went, ‘It’s Martha Stewart! That’s where it has to go.’" Starting the project fresh, and working from her fascination with the Stewart phenomenon, Burns incorporated the connection into each character’s story. And to great effect.
She recalls the time she performed an early version of Dough at Rough Acts, part of Theatre Junction’s festival. "A friend of mine, Doug McKeag said, ‘I loved it, I thought it was great. (But) the women around me got on a whole other level. It was like you were speaking two languages.’ I was saying something that they were triggering into."
The more evolved, more fleshed-out version of Dough has as its underlay a critical analysis of the place of women in our culture. But don’t let that scare you off. "It’s a very funny show," assures Burns. "I wanted to make points but do it in a very funny way."
Using humour to draw attention to more serious issues is something the seasoned performer is unafraid of. "For once in my life, I’m just putting it all out there with this play, and going, ‘I think I see something. Does anyone else agree?’ And I fully expect people to go, ‘That was weird.’" |
Copyright ©2006 FFWD. All rights reserved.