Calendar

Restaurants

Most Read
  • Valhella Giant wolves, demon witches, and lascivious gods rock the Autograph | 5/16/2012
  • Murder Ink Murders this Week: 8; Murders this Year: 73 | 5/16/2012
  • A Step Above Stoop-sitting in Baltimore | 5/16/2012
  • Sowing the Seeds Urban farming is on the rise in Baltimore | 5/16/2012
  • Back To Nature For the first time in years, Animal Collective returns home to Maryland | 7/6/2011
  • Murder Ink Murders this Week: 3; Murders this Year: 65 | 5/9/2012
  • Wall To Wall Murals by street artists from around the world now occupy Station North | 5/9/2012

Print Email

Stage

Arresting Development

Narrative performance obliquely veers into headlong confrontation with abuse

Photo: Philip Laubner, License: N/A, Created: 2010:10:19 19:18:35

Philip Laubner

Rebecca Nagle (left to right), Sarah Tooley, and Monica Mirabile.


The three young women onstage are helping the audience distinguish between good touches and bad touches. All three wear cute orange and green costumes, which match the safety-cone orange and slime-green accents of the set. It’s a playful environment, meant to suggest a whimsical and attention-grabbing kids television show. And so much about the experience of Darb TV perfectly captures that spirit, from the hot colors to the stuffed-animal-like talking puppet stage-right that sometimes functions as host and guide.

At the moment, though, Monica Mirabile (who also designed the costumes) and Rebecca Nagle stand arms akimbo to either side of Sarah Tooley at this Nov. 2 press preview, and Tooley asks the audience to call out an example of a “good” touch. “A hug,” somebody offers. “A high five,” another voice calls. With each good touch, Nagle and Mirabile mime a childlike expression of joy, smiling and turning their palms up in a gleeful sort of way. Tooley then asks for bad touches, and the audience responds. “ A slap,” one voice calls, and with that Nagle and Mirabile cross their arms and frown.

Tooley then begins to push boundaries. What about when your father kisses your owie on your leg? “Good,” the audience responds. “What about when your father kisses your leg in your bed?” another one of the young women asks. The audience sits silent, and the expressionless Nagle and Mirabile push the now rhetorical questions into the uncomfortable with arresting speed: What about when your father kisses you in your bed and he’s drunk? What about when your father kisses you in your bed and he’s drunk and naked? What about when your father kisses you in your bed and he’s drunk and has an erection?

Darb TV, obviously, is not a kids show, but that it chooses to embrace that format, even tangentially, speaks to the power of its presentation and the intelligence behind its creation. Written by Nagle and realized by Nagle, Mirabile, and Tooley under the direction of Natalya Brusilovsky, the performance leaps from moments of casual and childish humor to moments of significant trauma. Sometimes these shifts are jarring and abrupt. Sometimes they’re rather seamless. That both are equally uncomfortable strengthens some of the performance’s ideas about the passive acceptance of sexual abuse.

As a performance artist, Nagle (“Playing the Dozen,” Art, June 10, 2009) has fearlessly tackled issues of the body, power, and boundary pushing before in ways that straddle outright performance and theatrical narrative. Darb TV represents her latest step closer to outright conventional theater without sacrificing the interactive and psychological reach of her performance work. “When I was writing the play I had the idea for some themes,” Nagle says by phone during a brief interview Nov. 4. “And I kept asking myself, ‘What’s the format? How am I going to put this all together?’ And then I thought, a fairy tale, or a kids story—like the Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose. And then I started leaning more toward a kids TV show.”

  • Valhella Giant wolves, demon witches, and lascivious gods rock the Autograph | 5/16/2012
  • Radio Free Baltimore Public radio personality Al Letson tunes into Mobtown | 5/9/2012
  • Whoop Dee Doo A drenched clown, an apathetic werewolf, and other bizarro characters help locals create an unconventional TV show | 4/25/2012
  • Las Meninas A 17th-century scandal is brought vividly to life in Rep Stage’s last production of the season | 4/25/2012
  • 10X10 10X10 At Fells Point Corner Theatre Through April 29 More at weekly.citypaper.com Fells Point Corner Theatre debuted its 10X10 concept last year. It’s back for this second iteration due to popular demand, and no wonder. The production, a collection of | 4/18/2012
We welcome user discussion on our site, under the following guidelines:

To comment you must first create a profile and sign-in with a verified DISQUS account or social network ID. Sign up here.

Comments in violation of the rules will be denied, and repeat violators will be banned. Please help police the community by flagging offensive comments for our moderators to review. By posting a comment, you agree to our full terms and conditions. Click here to read terms and conditions.
comments powered by Disqus