Body Image Takes Center Stage

“Measure Up,” which played in Adams Pool Theatre until Sunday, comprised two very different plays on the subject of feminine identity. The first play, “Beautiful Bodies,” written by Laura Cunningham and directed by Rachel J. Stephens ’15, took a much more realistic approach to the subject, retelling the story of six women gathered for a baby shower. This performance, which investigated the thoughts and struggles of women through their conversations, was perfectly contrasted by a surreal second play, “The Most Massive Woman Wins,” written by Madeleine George and directed by Lelaina E. Vogel ’15. Both plays worked in tandem to build and destroy the modern conception of a woman.

The second play added a level of complexity that was missed in the first. While directed impressively and acted superbly, the script of “Beautiful Bodies” was at times very predictable. The script, which seems to include various feminine clichés, at times lost its potential impact by refusing to let characters stray from these stereotypes. There is the woman who is wasting away from obsession over an ex (Wanjiku "Anshee" Mungai ’14), the fiery and at times insulting redhead (Olivia M. Munk ’16), the heartbroken, broke actress/waitress who epitomizes an emotional wreck (Carter L. W. Stratton ’16), the carefree woman pregnant from a brief affair (Alexis J. Smith ’15), the snobbish control-freak (Alice Abracen ’15), and the only consistently likeable character, the host of the baby shower (Nancyrose Houston ’15). Their emotions peaked peak, at the climax of the play, in a way that was too predictable—a problem with the script that resulted in a comically melodramatic ending.

Despite these noticeable flaws in the script, the show still conveyed real sentiment due to the talent and believability of the acting and staging. The play deals with everything from age to infidelity to the clitoris, all in quick and snappy dialogue. “After a certain point, there are no men, no sex. You just get rashes,” said Abracen’s Martha, summarizing the fears and insecurities the women confronted throughout the show.

While the first play was enjoyable, albeit predictable, the second play succeeded in portraying the same commonly discussed topics in an abstract and nuanced way. The elaborate set by Nandhini L. Sundaresan ’15 and props by Leila Y. Islam ’15 present in the first play disappeared in the second, which instead featured only four women (Munk, Abracen, Stratton, and Brenna K. McDuffie ’15) dressed in black and four plain chairs. The simple set gave actors the freedom to change the time and place within the show; the rearrangement of chairs quickly shifted the scenes between diverse locations such as a children’s playground and the lobby of a liposuction clinic. These four women, the disjointed points of focus in “The Most Massive Woman Wins,” took what had the potential to be an equally clichéd script and used it to artfully and hauntingly display the crumbling female identity. The entire theater became a stage as the four women left the front of the performance space to surround the audience and immerse the viewers in the experience of these women’s self-destruction as a result of societal projections of the ideal woman.

Though George’s script includes topics such as self-mutilation, bulimia, and rape, it manages to trace the characters’ wide range of issues back to a central point of suffering: the effect that weight has on identity. As characters relive their emotional tragedies from childhood and adulthood, their stories intensify and take on an increasingly serious tone. The tension in the play builds until one woman literally lights herself on fire in an attempt to improve her body. Another woman comes to a sad revelation after years of sexual rejection: “If I can’t change the world, I have to change myself,” declared Sabine (Munk) as she attempted to justify her decision to undergo liposuction.

When juxtaposed with a logical and structured discussion of the issues women face in “Beautiful Bodies,” the second play’s complete destruction of the female psyche—so rationally defined by the first play’s characters in their conversation—took away the option to label and stereotype the challenges women face. Having such young, beautiful girls play the roles of women who worry about their appearances and describe themselves as fat only pulled into question the ways in which all women define and destroy themselves as well as the labels that society places on women. The plays worked together successfully to create an image of the woman only to take it apart, offering uncommon insight into Western female body politics.