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Dance Nation by Clare Barron at Playwrights Horizons

After seeing Clare Barron's new play, Dance Nation, at Playwrights Horizons, I am angry.

I am angry that Playwrights Horizons put something so underdeveloped and half-baked on their stage.

I am angry that this play represents the state of New York theater these days.

I am angry that I won't get those two hours of my life back that I spent suffering through it.

(And now I am angry at the raves it received. But nothing should surprise me anymore.)

It's the kind of play that would make me swear off theater if I wasn't already excited to see The Beast in the Jungle and Torch Song and The Ferryman. And of course, if I wasn't a masochist.

I really don't know what I was expecting from Dance Nation. I was okay with Barron's concept of adults playing the 13 year old girls (it happened in The Wolves and worked beautifully; I wouldn't expect, nor would I want, actual teenagers in this play), and I was even okay with one of them being played by an actress in her 60s. But Barron's note in the program says she didn't want them all to be played by petite 25 year olds. Okay but when I look around the stage, I see the majority of your actresses are thin, young, and attractive. If you're going to have a gimmick, have conviction in it. It's nice that the cast is racially diverse but I want to see body diversity as well. Represent every type of woman on stage. For a play that claims to be feminist, it doesn't have the guts to fully embrace it's own bullshit.

I am also unclear about how we're supposed to interpret these characters. Barron has called it a "ghost play," whatever that is, so I'm not sure whether or not the characters are actually supposed to sound like 13 year olds. Because they don't. I hate to keep comparing this to the vastly superior Sarah DeLappe play The Wolves but DeLappe was able to create characters who acted and sounded like teenage girls. They were relateable. I don't know what kind of 13 year old girl Barron was but those characters didn't act like any of the ones I knew, or the one I was. (I was also memorizing Angels in America and listening to Rufus Wainwright when I was 13 so if anyone wants to write a play about that girl, be my guest.) They don't sound 13. And granted, I haven't been 13 in nearly twenty years and kids are very different these days but what the hell is going on this play? I never knew of any girl who a) would refer to her own vagina as a "pussy" and b) would even acknowledge that she has a perfect pussy.

Okay, if you want to argue with me that this is Barron's way of showing how girls reclaim their bodies and the power over their bodies and how they deal with the emotional bullshit that is being a 13 year old girl (it's really not fun), I'll buy that. But it's done in such a presentational way. Show, don't tell. We get glimpses into these characters but they're not really developed. I want to know more about Connie and her mother on anti-depressants and her toy horses. I want to understand why Ashlee just says "no" to people who tell her she's beautiful, and her messed up sense of power and the politics that come with it. I want to know more about Luke; what's his deal? What is he supposed to represent? Instead Barron just goes for shock value, and relies too much on vulgarity for my tastes. (I'm not a prude but vulgarity is never going to be funny to me. I don't need someone yelling "motherfucker" and "cunt" over and over again.)

(I will say it was nice to have a real period on stage, even if it leads to some eye-rolling moments.)

I don't know what I wanted this play to be. I don't know what I expected it to be either. But whatever it is on stage, I hate it.
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