Larry Littany Litt
Lists of Promises "Lists of Promises"
The question: Is “A Room of One’s Own” enough to satisfy the ever increasing demands of the creative female mind? This quote from Virginia Wolff’s 1928 long and fundamental university lecture of the same name kicks off this wildly imaginative performance. However "Lists of Promises" claims another origin story and inspiration from sculptor and art historian Merlin Stone’s equally important 1976 feminist exposition, “When God Was a Woman.” The creative team is quoting two of feminism’s most famous thinkers. Yet this performance is about so much more, at least from my male gaze. This Cirque du Femme is a non-stop dynamic visual adventure. It risks the bodies of young and senior aerial artists who recite dialogue into their flying. As if angels floated through the heavens when thinking and speaking was needed. Lisa Giobbi’s design and movements of herself and the other aerialists are in themselves a circus to astonish. My eyes couldn’t help to follow them when they were appeared above stage. Taxiing before take off we’re piloted by a roller skating narrator who tells us the herstory of a creative woman’s desires. Where can she sit alone and think, write and not be accosted by the daily routine set for her by external forces. However she is most likely writing about these external forces and their effects on her characters. That is the power of good fiction - the insertion of the author into the scene with her characters. Does a writer always need a room of her own and a stipend to do this? Who dares answer? A chorus of six beautiful young women reveal the terrors of female life from Adam and Eve to modern women. But today many young women are successful in careers that were impossible a hundred years ago. Each of these choralees had a point to make. That there is a box that women lived in until recently. Caution is needed because we may be returning to that time if conservatives have their way. I saw the arc of female history sung before my eyes as I was watching glamour and revealing costumes show me that it’s not just the body that needs empowerment. The creative spirit is hungering for a chance to manifest itself. I think that spirt can blossom for everyone who needs to find a space. Studios and classes abound. Does that make good interesting art? It’s in the eye of the beholder. We critics are merely another voice added to the chaos of the internet. There’s a scene of real passion when we enter a courtroom where a nameless woman has committed a crime against an equally unidentified man. She admits her guilt claiming she did it for all womankind and their shared herstory, Is that an excuse? If it is then all men had better be careful. How can you tell when a woman is going to go off the rails? That’s just it. We can’t. Only they can. And they won’t tell. Ildiko Nemeth’s directorial genius is revealed again in "Lists of Promises." It’s a provocative three ring circus of beauty, action, truths and social commentary. Now I know why there’s so much anger in the world. A must see.
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