What I liked
Playwright Marnie Olson splits her protagonist into three parts, each bearing one of the title’s names. She then wisely lets them take us on a clear, linear path through time, encountering many of the indignities and abuses women endure in our society. She also shrewdly combines age-old comic tropes with postmodern sensibilities (e.g., a vaudeville number about ‘Boobs and Blood’).
Jennifer Novak Chun’s direction is brisk and deft, always holding our attention, always having the actors speak with intense focus, and demystifying partial nudity in countless onstage costume changes.
What I didn't like
Perhaps a Brechtian narrator would give the audience an easier ride, helping us hold onto the the long arc through the harrowing details. And an added 5 minutes might allow Olson to clarify which real-life events (symbolized in a wonderful, chilling metaphor) resolved the protagonist’s crisis.
My overall impression
‘Crack Whore’ begins lightheartedly enough, evoking vaudeville and burlesque. But soon clouds gather and it becomes a cri de coeur, crying justice in a voice first raised in ‘The Trojan Women,’ assaulting our comfort with a fierceness that would make Artaud or Brecht proud. This is theatre as the ancients of every race intended it — strong soul medicine. I don’t know a woman (or an LGBTQIA+ person) whom I would not warn about the show’s many triggers. And I don’t know a man I would let off the hook. See it.
