| . | 06/23/2009
In Conclusive Woman
By: Victor Gluck
JulieRae (Pratt) Mollenkamp in a scene from In Conclusive Woman
In Conclusive Woman is an ambitious confessional multimedia one-woman show that is really seven plays in one. Award-winning performance artist/actress/teacher and director JulieRae (Pratt) Mollenkamp recounts her life story using video, slide projections, audience participation, songs live, recorded and videoed, and role playing. In Conclusive Woman which is ultimately somewhat overwhelming in content contains important themes and heavy subtext presented in a comedic manner.
Although Mollenkamp is always commanding and has tremendous stage presence, In Conclusive Woman is more than a little unfocused, attempting to cover enough material for a lifetime of performances. The current show deals with dysfunctional families, the role of women in America, contemporary sexuality, problems with self-image for one whose weight seesaws up and down, the story of her mother’s descent into dementia, Mollenkamp’s tragicomic attempts at conceiving a child, and her career as a college theater professor.
Any one of these would be enough for most performance artists. It is as though, Mollenkamp wants to get it all in this time for fear she will not have another opportunity to tell her story. With the heavy subtext of near tragedy and the serious messages she draws from her experiences, in the end it is unclear what she wants an audience to take away from this overwhelming 80 minutes. Some of the multimedia effects, though interesting in themselves, are distracting from the story Mollenkamp wants to tell.
The evening begins with an additional 15 minute pre-show in which Mollenkamp goes online and in real time converses with friends on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. Although startling in its intimacy, this adds little to the show as it is unrelated to what follows. It also gives a false impression that the show will be more high-tech than it actually is. However, Mollenkamp may be a pioneer in using the live internet as part of onstage performance.
When the show begins, Mollenkamp enters as a college professor and relates to the audience as though they were students in her class with the lights being kept on throughout the evening. The difficulty with this metaphor is that the stage is set as a boudoir with vanity table, chaise lounge and full length mirror. Beginning in leotards and unmake up, the actress adds bits of clothing and makeup so that she is fully dressed by the end of the show. The idea that she is a professor addressing her class falls by the wayside, despite the fact that she holds a pad that we presume contains her “lesson plan.”
Mollenkamp tells us about how her childhood was affected by her father leaving after she and her two brothers and sister were born and her mother’s problems as a single parent. (Her father eventually starts other families elsewhere.) She develops a weight problem which defines her self-image. Entering darkest adolescence she has both liberating and unfortunate sexual experiences which explore this topic in America in the last four decades.
Told she will never amount to much, Mollenkamp shows up her detractors by obtaining a doctorate and teaching on the college level. On the one hand, she finds great fulfillment teaching theater, while on the other, her love life is a disappointment. When she marries the man she thinks is the love of her life she finds that he is often unfaithful and that relationship eventually comes to grief.
As her mother ages, she is less and less able to take care of herself and Mollenkamp must become her mother’s caregiver. When her mother is diagnosed with dementia and later Alzheimer’s, Mollenkamp must learn how to deal with this new development. In her own life, the actress comes down with several life threatening illnesses, which in all cases the doctors are inconclusive about her prognosis. When she reaches her lowest point, Mollenkamp meets the true love of her life and ends up achieving happiness and wisdom though her life experience.
High above the stage are two screens which are used for both still photographs and streaming video. While this adds greatly to the story, the two screens which are always filled with different images simultaneously are distracting, as one doesn’t know where to look first: Mollenkamp, the screen on the left or the screen on the right. It might be better if the screens were used in progression rather than both always filled at the same time. Sometimes less is more.
In Conclusive Woman is a fascinating show both for what it gets right as well as what it gets wrong.
Mollenkamp is a fearless performer in her unwavering honesty and willingness to use her tumultuous personal life as the stuff of drama. A cross between Eve Ensler’s The Good Body and Estelle Parsons in Miss Margarida’s Way, what In Conclusive Woman most needs is an editor and a director. Always interesting, In Conclusive Woman is ultimately overpowering in its attempt to tell seven stories of a woman who has lived life to the fullest.
In Conclusive Woman (through June 28)
Ryan Repertory Company at the Harry Warren Theatre, 2445 Bath Ave. at Bay 38th Street, in Brooklyn
For tickets, call 718-996-4800 or email: ryanrep@juno.com
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