It's not that controversial performance artist Karen Finley has gone all warm and fuzzy on stage or soft off-stage on what she views as the forces of repression. (Remember her 1990 Supreme Court battle that served as a lightning rod for such emotionally charged subjects as art vs. obscenity and NEA funding?) Nonetheless, her new solo show, "Shut Up and Love Me!," which opened Off-Broadway at the Westbeth Theatre Center on July 24, marks an aesthetic and political departure for Finley.
Compared to her earlier work—most notably, "We Keep Our Victims Ready," where she donned the mantle of an enraged feminist and blanketed herself in chocolate smears (a none-too-subtle symbol for excrement)—in "Shut Up," Finley displays a genuine comic flair; indeed, she's almost a zany in a high camp burlesque vein.
To call her new piece a bizarre collage would not quite capture the spirit. Throughout, Finley offers an oddball mix of troubling sexual tales awash in incest motifs, interspersed with snippets of Finley, in the guise of erotic dancer, swiveling about in various stages of undress. At the end, stark naked, pelvis gyrating, she nose dives into a puddle of honey, joyously rolling around in the gook, while grinning lewdly, her tongue flicking in and out of her mouth like a slithering snake on a mood-altering drug.
Besides functioning as a contrast to the darker sections, "The burlesque element is a consciously chosen device that illustrates a theatrical tradition," asserts the fortysomething, Chicago-born Finley, during a face-to-face interview held in a Back Stage conference room. "When women were allowed on stage at all, it was as burlesque performers. What I am doing, not unlike Mae West or even Phyllis Diller, is performing burlesque and parodying it at the same time. I'm both embracing and deconstructing the chanteuse persona.
"I'm also exploring the structure of freedom and [in the storytelling sections] attempting to understand the unresolved relationships we have with our parents that we carry with us on into adulthood. And when those issues are resolved, that's the joy of life!"
And, if nothing else, "Shut Up and Love Me!" is about joy, explains the striking-looking Finley, who, in contrast to her bawdy and aggressive onstage persona, is thoughtful, watchful, and almost reserved off-stage.
"In this show, I'm getting rid of the archetypes that have been given to me. No," she corrects herself, "the archetypes that I volunteered for—the politically correct heroine fighting for freedom of speech. This work is a reaction against my prior work and image. I am embracing the criticisms that my detractors have leveled against me. I am embracing sexuality without apology. I am not a victim and there is no rhetoric."
She adds, "Some feminists don't like this piece. That's because I embody and heighten the female sensual need as opposed to saying that sexuality is wrong or that it's about political control."
A Societal Muse
Finley dubs herself a "societal muse," a performing "Rorschach test," onto whom others—in particular, members of the far right—project their sexual anxieties. "They eroticize my work and enter into a sexually abusive relationship with me."
She is specifically talking about the aforementioned Supreme Court case. In 1990, her piece, "We Keep Our Victims Ready," was one of four NEA-underwritten works selected by Jesse Helms as "obscene," igniting the NEA funding controversy. Helms' objections led to the NEA cutting Finley's grant money, as well as that of three other controversial performance artists. That action, in turn, led to Finley and the three other performance artists taking the case to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ultimately came down on the side of Helms, with Finley and the others losing their federal funding.
Finley declares that she was a willing player in the debacle, a part she has come to regret. "In fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, I took on a starring role as victim and abused female. I would now handle it very differently. I would laugh at it, be more like Sandra Bernhardt, or me [my lighthearted persona] on the TV show, 'Politically Incorrect.' Today, I would not take it [Jesse Helms et al] all that seriously."
She pauses. "Yet it was serious. I was young and naïve. I'm now sadder and wiser. I believed in the Supreme Court and the idea of justice. I came out of the '60s. Of course, the episode hindered me. My work was suddenly looked at in a pornographic context. The lack of public funding led to lack of access elsewhere. A bar in Boston, which had already hired me, offered me money not to perform. I have received death threats."
She has also received two Obies, two Bessies, and multiple grants from the NEA (before the court case) and the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA). She is the author of four books and is currently editing an anthology on erotic writing called "Aroused," to be published by Thunders Mouth Press this fall.
Finley is, to say the least, a curious amalgam.
Consider her evolution. She acknowledges that she has hitherto been identified with a brand of angry feminism. "I interpreted my personal losses politically. In my new piece, my psyche feels glorious." Nowhere is Finley's sea change more evident than in her respective, uh, food baths on stage. There's a quantum leap between wallowing nude in honey, as opposed to chocolate, she points out.
"The chocolate image is degrading. Honey, on the other hand, brings to mind religious rituals, high holidays. The bee evokes sexuality with its smell and nectar. And, of course, the picture of a woman gliding in the honey is provocative. It's a simplistic dance, and it's beautiful."
Finley disarmingly admits she is both a narcissist and an exhibitionist. "Yes, I am an exhibitionist. I don't mind being called it at all. And I truly enjoy my narcissism. I embody the narcissism—I hope with graciousness—that exists in all actors and actresses."
And then there are Finley's artistic origins and her unexpected goals. Check this out: Finley's cultural-political roots are in the '60s, and her aesthetic mentors are, she says, Yoko Ono, John Cage, and Fluxus; the latter was a forefather of art gallery-based "happenings." Still, fame and fortune have their allure, and Finley's goal is to take "Shut Up and Love Me!" to Broadway. (Yes, Broadway!)
Pushing Buttons
Finley recalls growing up in a home that valued the arts. "I always knew I was going to do something in the world of imagination and, like John Cage or Andy Warhol, I wanted to push the [emotional] buttons. I took one acting class at the Goodman when I was in high school, but I never thought of myself as an actress."
Finley's father was a jazz percussionist; although Finley notes matter-of-factly, "He was best known for committing suicide. His suicide brought me fame as well. I was 21 years old, and from that loss everything else emerged."
She suggests that her father's suicide and the resonating shadow it was destined to cast were present (no matter how obliquely) from the time she was born, and the episode's horrible imminence, on some level, propelled her into creating her own one-person pieces. The actual suicide, Finley says, was a watershed event—psychologically and aesthetically. She does not elaborate.
Finley graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied video and performance. And within short order, she had launched her career. Interestingly, Finley defines herself as a visual artist more than a performer or writer, although she contends, "Writing and acting are forms I've appropriated because it [a traditional theatrical structure] allows me to talk to the middle-class and working-class theatregoers who might be in the audience. Appreciating high art takes special training.
"However, within the theatrical structure, I bring in 'conceptual' elements—like breaking the continuity, repetition, and feeling free to make mistakes on stage, and then acknowledging those mistakes [with impromptu comments and chortling]."
Finley likes being the star of a "personality-driven" show that does not celebrate narrative, memorization, motivation, and characterization. "There's nothing more important to a traditional audience than to see a performer maintain character. It's all so backwards in terms of what's happening in any other medium. I want to open theatre up. So, instead of saying, 'The show must go on,' you say, 'Life must go on.' Instead of saying, 'What a great performance,' you say, 'What a great human performance.' "