Specters of Male Violence in “Especially Heinous” and What the Constitution Means to Me
When I was growing up my mom often repeated a warning to my sister and me about men. She warned us that not every man we meet would be as trustworthy as our dad and our poppop. Sometimes she didn’t put our other grandfather or our uncles in this category of trustworthy men, which I don’t think reflects on their character; rather, she knew that even the men closest to us often have the potential to betray us.
On Audience and Bebe Neuwirth’s “Real Live Girl”
In live performance there is a dialogic relationship between performer and audience wherein the audience listens for the “memory, desire, and hope” that well up in the performer and echo back their own, disparate impressions. Because of Neuwirth’s approach to performance, any lingering preoccupation with Bebe-Neuwirth-as-star falls by the wayside as the song and the story it tells take center stage. Spectators can fully immerse themselves in the narrative because they are unencumbered by the knowledge of an already-established import for its performer.