- OTHER MEDIA
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- SF Bay Guardian May 11, 2011 (Robert Avila)
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- Honey (Cheryl Smith) talks about "the shoes" first, the
shoes repeatedly, against even her analyst's power to retain a common interest
in the footwear of her attacker. Why should she so concern herself with
this detail of the man who assaulted her, wounding her in ways too subtle
and deep to measure—unless through the wayward precision of the poetical
imagination some measure might actually be taken. That is the force and
beauty of Lucky Girl, a notable new stage adaptation by Tom Juarez
of poet Frances Driscoll's 1997 collection, The Rape Poems, which
premieres as part of EXIT Theatre's DIVAfest 2011. Juarez crafts an engagingly
dynamic and delicate narrative arc from Driscoll's thematically joined
but otherwise disparate poems, gorgeously formulated verses that delve
into a devastating subject with an unexpected range of humor, insight,
and compassion. This supple range is acutely grasped and exquisitely interpreted
by Smith, whose gripping performance (keenly directed by Kathryn Wood)
eschews anything remotely sentimental for a complex and moving portrait
of the enduring aftermath of terror.
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