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Cinghiale!

by Emilie Miller
SReview in the San Francisco Bay Guardian by Robert Avile (January 21, 2004)

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Cinghiale (saying "chin golly" is close enough) is apparently Italian for wild boar. Since my knowledge of Italian comes largely from menus, I rely on Emilie Miller's idiosyncratic one-woman show for the term's proper import, at least beyond the merely zoological. I have no evidence, in other words, for the existence of cinghiale alfredo. Miller's dish seems to be sociopsychological in nature – a bold, sassy, and dangerous delicacy at that – normally closeted at the back of the mind, but here wending its way through the testimonials of a diverse group of women comprising a society of recovering boar hunters. Amid these confessions of stifled female voices finding outlet in firearms, a troubled but gifted girl named Louise tells her tale ("Hello. My name is Louis. And I hunt."), which oscillates, along with Louise's physical and mental health, between an overprotective mother and a demonic inner force (living in her closet). The piece's quirky charm comes as much from Miller's animated delivery as her intriguing theme. Sure-footed comic timing, sharp characterizations, and a clever, playful appeal go some way toward compensating for the story's choppy, slightly muddled design.

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