About 'TO MY CHAGRIN'
Actor, playwright, and OBIE Award winner Peggy Shaw has been accused of being masculine, what a surprise! She has been a king, a drag, a racist, a he-man and a confessor and she had some experience being butch enough for the job until she has to talk to mixed race grandson about her white working class lineage of racism , fast cars, queer haircuts and rock and roll.
Does she want HIM to be like HER?
In her new solo, "TO MY CHAGRIN" Peggy Shaw explores her relationship to grandson and wonders out loud about how images and information about gender and race are "passed", down, down, down through the generations. It is a tribute to all the cars she has ever owned and a rock and roll lullaby sung to a mixed race dual heritage sweet grand companion son by a mixed up second generation in-bred irish white grand butchmother old enough to remember what a carburetor is.
Set on the body of a rusted out old chevy "TO MY CHAGRIN" is a treatise on sexuality, death and rascism. It is written and performed by Peggy Shaw in collaboration with Vivian Stohl who also accompanies Peggy with rock and roll rhythms and a junk yard sound scape. The poetry and music are choreographed by Stormy Brandenberger with an energy that suggests the moves of the great R and B artists of the 50s and sixties. TO MY CHAGRIN is edited and directed by Lois Weaver.
She performs wearing a sharp pinstripe suit. She talks with a tough, contralto that sounds a little Noo Yawk and part Bah-ston. With her short, slick pompadour, she looks like a throwback to the days of the Rat Pack, when men were men and women were "broads" and "dames."
-Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
CLICK HERE to listen to an interview excerpt w/ Peggy Shaw & Pat Graney!
CLICK HERE to listen to the full interview!
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