By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
In her homeland in southern Africa, Saartje Baartman was a beauty.
In Europe, the Venus Hottentot with her large buttocks and elongated genitalia was a monstrosity.
Lured from her home with promises of wealth and fame in a land with streets paved with gold, she ends up in a freak show, and then in the bed of a scientific lecher.
“Venus” by Suzan-Lori Parks opens tonight (10-19) at 8 in the Eva Marie Saint Theater on the BGSU campus. Directed by D. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson, the play, which is based a real person, continues Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee and next weekend Oct. 26-28 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 28 at 2 p.m. Click for tickets.
The show opens with the announcement of Venus’ death. There will be no show tonight, various members of the cast, including Venus herself (Annase Raji), declare. Venus is dead. That foreshadowing adds a grimness to the proceedings.
We are introduced to the Negro Resurrectionist (Dannie Ellis) who will serve as our guide and narrator, providing footnotes from scientific records and news stories. A Resurrectionist was the word for criminals who would take recently buried corpses and sell them to doctors for research. In this case, the Negro Resurrectionist proves not just a fitting guide but also one of the few sympathetic characters.
[RELATED: Presenters bring story of colonial ‘body snatchers’ to life at Seven Eagles]
The time, he tells us, is 1810, three years after England outlawed the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Saartje is transported to England by two brothers (Braden Evans and James Wang ), who knew her from childhood. Domestic servant she believes she will go to England be treated as a princess, earn money, and return home to great esteem. But as several other characters note, she has a look in her eye that betrays her ignorance. She will never get out. But no one tells her. And she even comes to believe she does not want to return.
She falls into the clutches of the Mother-Showman (Wang) becoming the ninth mouth this “mother’ must feed. The others are all freaks, a bearded lady, for example.
Venus brings in the crowds, especially for private showings where the customers do more than view. They poke her and violate her naked body.
More than convenient casting, having the freaks and the audience members and the scientists who study her in Paris, all played by the same members of the chorus is a telling commentary that implicates all levels of society in the trafficking of Venus. (Chorus members are: Molly Moreland, Owen Minchau, Kris Weeks, Laci Haller, Frankie Gross, Marian Petrie, Gabrielle Guyton)
Venus is brought to Paris by the Baron Docteur (Evans) who uses her for sexual satisfaction and for scientific study. That exploitation extends beyond her death as the Resurrectionist sells her body after death.
An upper-class drama plays out in parallel to the tale of Venus. In interpolated scenes, we see an engagement coming apart because a young man (Kris Weeks) is infatuated by Venus. He longs for a wild, exotic woman, and his fiancée (Gabrielle Guyton) is distraught. She misses the poems he used to write for her. Now he writes observations of Venus.
These scenes play out for an audience of one, sometimes the Docteur, and later the Resurrectionist.
“Venus” plays out on a stage set between two banks of seats. When Venus is tried for indecency, the judge and witnesses appear in the gloom above her.
This puts the audience face-to-face with the characters. Wang’s Mother-Showman seems to taunt the audience as much as she taunts Venus. Ellis’s Resurrectionist is expressionless, matter of fact, almost disdainful of the proceedings. Evans’ Docteur has a creepy charm until his self-control slips, revealing the pervert within. This is collapse is initiated by the appearance of an old school chum (Wang), who confronts him about the scandal his relationship with Venus is causing.
And Annase brings complexity to her Venus. Even at her depths she retains dignity. She never gives up trying to control her fate.
But the audience knows what she doesn’t. She will not escape this macabre carnival. She will never be able to make people see her for who see is, a human being, a woman, not a monstrosity.
