Mary (Tanna Frederick) hears voices that tell her to perpetually rob 7/11s, but she promises that she will stop committing crimes as soon as her absentee mother (Barbara Bain) permanently returns from traveling the world. Eleanor, Mary and Lili’s mother, wants to escape reality and succeeds in doing so by never being in the United States and by ignoring her children. Ironically, the most level-headed of the family, Lili (Alex Sedrowski), tries to actively seduce Renee (Cathy Arden), a married woman paleontologist. Toying with traditional theatrical form, Why We Have a Body lacks rigid cohesion and modest subtlety, preferring to leave little to the imagination. However, the play sporadically compensates for its blatant drawbacks with amusing vignettes.
Unlike conventional plays, Why We Have a Body experiments with its form. The play’s actions and themes are presented through monologues, espousing theories on sexuality, morality and dreams. This endless tirade of soliloquies serves one purpose: to reveal each character’s personality and thoughts. The audience learns that the absent mother wants nothing to do with her daughters, the daughters crave their mother’s attention, and the paleontologist feels more like a man than a woman. Since the playwright minimally uses on-stage action to tell the story, the monologues become tedious and dead-set in hammering in the characters’ ideologies.
Although Why We Have a Body becomes a pulpit for its characters, the play still possesses the recipe for hilarious soliloquies. As she decadently lies in her ivory white bed, Eleanor dissects her role in raising her daughters. She questions what she did to her youngest, Mary, to make her a criminal and to her oldest, Lili, to make her a lesbian. The two sisters hold Eleanor completely responsible for destroying their lives, but she’s a new person now, she says. The cells do regenerate every seven years, so she’s an entirely different person now. They can’t blame her for her past self, can they?
In addition to eliminating the fourth wall, the actresses also directly addresses the band members, exchanging suggestive glances and prompting them to play different songs. Not only do the band members add a light touch of laughter to the play, but also without the musical accompaniment, the play would be a struggle. The long monologues would be colorless and drone-like in the silence, but the band fills the void with coy soft jazz and sly detective music.
Traditional theatergoers will find the play’s form highly experimental and will quickly realize that Why We Have a Body serves more as a soap box, than as a play. Although playwright Claire Chafee directly speaks to the audience through the monologues, Bain’s performance and the band’s music uplift Why We Have a Body from tolerable mediocrity to pleasant acceptance.
Playing at the Edgemar Center for the Arts, Why We Have a Body will continue its run until April 29. Tickets cost $35, and the center is located at 2437 Main St. in Santa Monica.
Natalia Evdokimova has been involved with theater throughout her life and has reviewed theatrical productions for local and citywide publications since 2005.