Dozens of people gathered
at The Outpost in Monterey Friday night, as part of the venue’s
“Every Other Friday” series of shows.
Groups and individuals strolled through the doors, opted whether
to make a voluntary donation at the door, huddled up with friends
at tables and joined in conversation.
Soon afterward, the lights dimmed and the audience hushed.
Eyes focused to the front of the room.
A loud knock banged out from a side door.
Rap-rap-rap!
Once opened, Doreen McElroy, in character, walked through and
began her monologue.
“Ah, yes — on we go,” she stated in a matter-of-fact
manner, walking past the tables of attentive audiences members.
“Speeding along in our tunnel-vision short-term gratification
way.”
The words marked the opening lines of Crow Baby Songs, a performance
piece that evolved from a collection of “tiny, sort of,
mini-poems” McElroy began penning more than five years
ago. Skot Atha, The Outpost’s artistic director, read
some of the collection and suggested she morph it into performance
art.
“But I had never been a performer, and I’d never
memorized a piece,” said McElroy, who doubles as Monterey’s
city clerk.
After taking about four months to store lines in her head, she
unveiled it to an audience at The Outpost on Friday and gave
a second performance Saturday.
The opening monologue spawns poetic prose: “our souls
are howling for … peace, balance, union, love” within
a world of questions and imbalance.
The character, one of several played by McElroy during the performance,
criticizes the sheer number of powerless people in society and
questions the unchecked power of “our leaders.”
“It’s like being held captive by a teenage gang,”
the character states.
“What’s the difference between the tycoons and me?”
the character later asks, then pauses.
“Well, they have money. And I have a tape recorder,”
she says, drawing one of many sporadic bursts of laughter from
the crowd.
The guffaws likely provided welcome reaction to Atha, who said
of the piece before the performance: “I think it’s
very political, very funny — but I don’t know if
anybody else will think it’s funny.”
Plenty of those gathered at The Outpost Friday night found numerous
moments of humor in the performance, such as when McElroy turned
her back to the crowd and placed a crow on her shoulder that
faced the audience.
“You are the animals,” the bird declared in a high-pitch
voice, seemingly in answer to the initial person-character’s
many questions about the world.
The crow explains its beliefs, that mankind has failed see itself
as a part of the animal kingdom, blinded by its own belief that
it was created in God’s image.
“As animals you’re great,” the crow proclaims.
“As gods you suck.”
McElroy submitted a grant application last week to the Kentucky
Foundation for Women and hopes to use it, if approved, to perform
the show in other parts of the state, perhaps taking it to libraries
and coffeehouses in Louisville, Lexington and Frankfort.
She expects to hear on the foundation’s decision on awarding
a grant by May. She said she would also set up a Web site to
allow those who see the play to continue discussion about its
meaning after the performance.
McElroy said she wrote the piece to provide several overall
messages. It urges for people to take responsibility for their
roles within our vast society, she said, and for each person
to view his or her fellow humans as unique and to treat them
justly.
“We’re responsible for our own happiness,”
she said. “And we’re responsible for how we shape
the world.”
