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Sending
a message: Mirror, Mirror.
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True
Reflections
They will call themselves bitches, whores, and sluts; a body
will have a monologue; and the “Black Girl Butt” will be downsized.
But it’s all in the name of love—for everyone’s sake and size—that
Mirror, Mirror will be performed at Russell Sage College’s
James L. Meader theater today (Thursday) through Sunday.
“I’m
very radical about wasted time, and due to the American standard
of beauty, that’s all women are doing is wasting energy trying
to get that standard,” said Leigh Strimbeck, director and
creator of the original performance.
The idea was developed when David Baecker, assistant professor
of theater at Russell Sage College, asked Strimbeck to direct
a play for the campus. She formed a workshop with students
last year and developed six pieces that reflected the effects
and shortcomings of the negative beauty standard. The aim
was to overpower the media’s not-so-subliminal message that
skinny, big-boobed and flawless is the signature look for
American women.
Now 19 skits long, the play is no stage rendition of a “battling
anorexia” pamphlet or a public-service announcement. Although
the material includes stories from middle-school girls talking
about being called ‘sluts,’ and a portrait of a woman currently
battling a body-breakdown illness, the performance is not
intended to be sensational, but rather to expose the “gray
matter” of negative self-image. “Just looking in the mirror
and saying ‘I’m so fat’ is a daily breakdown of you,” said
Strimbeck, adding, “We need to cut that bullshit.”
Rebekah Barton, a sophomore at Sage and one of the 10 actresses
in the show, said the research for the comedy-drama was eye-opening;
each actress had to survey three people with questions such
as, “What’s the first thing you remember your parents telling
you about food/your body?”
“It
was therapeutic, really talking to people goes a lot deeper
than just basing the research off negative comments you hear,”
Barton said. She asserted that the goal of the project is
to prove that “your body is a part of you, it’s not
who you are.”
In addition to conducting survey interviews, all the actresses
read Courtney Martin’s book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters,
and watched the astonishing Dove Evolution ad on YouTube
(Google it for an in-depth Photoshopping session). Everyone
contributed to the skits, from Strimbeck to the actresses
to the interviewees, including an 85-year-old grandmother.
Phyillicia Bishop, a Sage communications student, ac tress,
and the show’s choreographer, praised the research: “I found
myself telling my friends, ‘No! You’re not fat!’ and
‘Eat that! Live your life, be happy!’” Discounting the idea
that a collection of personal skits would be hard to follow,
she said that “this won’t be confusing; we’re acting, but
we’re being ourselves—this was scripted from our daily lives.”
Strimbeck said she was empowered by the entire project, and
hopes to get it performed elsewhere. She said everyone can
catch on to the message: “It’s finding who you are, and staying
there.”
—Heather
Lumb
Mirror,
Mirror will be performed at the James L. Meader Theater
(Russell Sage College, Troy) tonight (Thursday, Feb. 28) through
March 2. Performances are Thursday-Saturday at 8 PM, and Saturday-Sunday
at 2 PM. Tickets are $10, $8 for students. A special mother-daughter
experience, Body Reflections, will take place on the Russell
Sage campus on March 1, from 10 AM-4 PM. For more info, visit
www.sage.edu/bodyimage.
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