Reality Shows

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• Publisher: Feminist Press E Books
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781558616714
• eBook ISBN: 9781558616721
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Artist Monographs

The first Karen Finlay book to be published since 2006, this collection of the first 10 years of the millennium shows an artist engaged in the deepest political and social issues of her times. The highlights and lowlights are encapsulated by the searing performances of Karen Finlay. From 'Liza's' 9/11 show to the channelling of Terri Schaivo to George (W. Bush) and Martha (Stewart), and the 'real' affair that spoiled the career of Governor Elliot Spitzer, The Reality Shows is a tour de force. Each performance in this lively collection is introduced by the author.

MAKE LOVE

Introduction

On September 13, 2001, I read an article in the New York Times. The feature included a photo of Guernica by Picasso. The article was written by several staff arts writers and was about creating art amid sorrow. I kept the article with me for a year. On September 13, 2001, I wrote the poem at the end of this performance. After 9/11, I decided to write about my experience, thinking of myself as both an artist and a historical recorder: I was working two blocks away from the World Trade Center and was on my way to work to read the final galleys of a book I was editing when the planes hit.

Soon after the attack I was struck by the fragmentation, the splitting of personalities, and the projections of a nation’s fears onto New Yorkers. Although the national tragedy was real and the world was made uncertain, this national tragedy became a site for the transference of unresolved childhood losses, fears. The need people felt to love and give to New York—on top of their own very real responses to the attack, the death, the horror—became an emotional overload. And I apologize, for I feel my language skills are insufficient, and my words trivialize an impact that goes beyond words.

I originally created a performance called “The Distribution of Empathy. There was understandably resistance to the performance, to even having it performed or produced. Problems occurred that I believe came out of a psychic avoidance of the topic. Eventually I was able to perform the piece at the Cutting Room on West Twenty-Fourth Street in New York City. The performance was in a cabaret room with a small stage. Food and drinks were served. The chef created the Ground Zero Hero sandwich and other delicacies. I would start the performance by walking through the audience, and they would give their firsthand accounts of witnessing 9/11. I only performed the piece on Tuesdays. Tuesday was still sacred, for 9/11 was on a Tuesday.

Gary Indiana, the writer, told us the story of how his brother was supposed to have been the pilot on the plane that went into the Pentagon. But his brother changed his flight schedule because he had to move that day. For a day, Gary thought his brother was dead. Hearing stories like that in this small, intimate room was profound and cathartic. Usually at the end of one of these performances the audience would be in tears.

On the small stage was a beautiful grand piano. Since my father was a percussionist, and because of my love of pianos, I would not have the piano moved for my performance. I started using the piano in my performance. I changed the performance, and had “The Star Spangled Banner sung and played. I would at first invite friends to sing; we would rise as an audience to sing the national anthem. I was aware of the tension, the resistance to standing for the anthem, the political conflict involved in displaying patriotism, the feeling that it was just a performance, and yet the feeling that artists also make up the country.

Eventually I had a singer perform “The Star Spangled Banner, and I decided to refer to music throughout the performance. I noticed my mind clinging to rhyme and music during and following the attack. I recalled that after my father committed suicide, my mother would think in rhyme to ground herself while she was in shock.

I felt people resisting me when I performed the piece. Part of it was not wanting to be reminded about 9/11. But I felt a different resistance, mostly when I was out of the city. I brought the performance to InterAct Theatre Company in Philadelphia. The close proximity of Philadelphia to New York made the piece work. I then brought the performance to Kunsthalle in Bergen, Norway; to New York University; to Hallwalls in Buffalo, New York; to Berkeley Repertory Theatre in California; and to the Big Rodeo Festival in Calgary, Canada.

I felt that the performance was staying on one level: the audience couldn’t decide whether or not they felt sorry for me. I really didn’t care whether they felt sorry for me—or about the confusion in American politics at the time, the confusion about being an American, or the loaded implication of being against or for the war.

As well, I had to face the fact that Karen Finley got in the way. I realized that as a performer, Karen Finley, my public self or my created self, is viewed as having a certain sense of justice. This feeling about the character “Karen Finley can be about someone’s personal causes—whether the person is Jesse Helms or a part of the liberal Left. Somehow, in this performance, when I am fragmenting and taking on different emotional levels, some people see it as self-indulgent, as if I were only referring to myself. The audience was not willing to transfer the emotional burden to me as Karen Finley, or share with me.

The title “The Distribution of Empathy was about a population giving—deciding to give emotionally—as a source of power. The emotional power is schadenfreude, the joy in hearing others’ misery. The reverse emotion is envy, which is experiencing pain in the pleasure of others. Both emotions go together. If there is envy present, there is also schadenfreude present. I felt that my performance provoked anxiety, and the audience’s resistance to handling these emotions was not breaking through. I decided to use a classic method of displacement. A way to control the fear is to transfer the emotion to an imaginary creature, just as children do to monsters under beds, big bad wolves, or enemies. What was happening emotionally in the performance was avoidance.

I decided to use drag and impersonation. I decided to use Liza Minnelli, a known New York City archetype, a phenomenon. Liza, as an imaginary creature, a goddess, a diva to project onto and live through, to experience through her. Liza, as a parody, as an artistic device to make information less threatening. Drag and being Liza, is a safe, distanced way to experience a too terrifying world, a hatred one wants to avoid. Liza becomes a symbol of a safety zone in between our dangerous feelings and our neurotic defenses; it saves the audience from feeling a hysterical paralysis.

“Make Love is a cabaret-driven, lounge-style act that channels Liza Minnelli in song, dance, glamour, and glitter. The “divaness of Liza, an iconic New Yorker, becomes the place to throw our pathos, hilarity, mockery, taboos about 9/11, and the current chaos of our nation. The unparalleled vicissitudes of Liza’s life are the backdrop to witnessing the fascination and revelation of a New Yorker struggling to make sense of it all, or to perform through it all. With piano, torch singing, and myself as narrator, the performance slips in and out of a New York multiple personality disorder (the neurotic tendencies of self-obsession) while trying to process this national tragedy and the current political climate. My reference to Liza Minnelli in the performance is a complex amalgam of pee-in-the-pants humor, pain, and compassionate outpourings of sorrow.

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(The audience is seated in a lounge atmosphere. The piano player comes out dressed in Bob Mackie drag, in reference to Liza Minnelli. He plays a medley of lounge-style tunes that turns into a medley of American war tunes. The singer enters. He is also in sequins-and-glitter Liza drag. While he sings, the stage fills with Liza interpreters. Liza is a concept. Liza is a way of life. Liza is a program. Liza is an emotional processing system for coping. Liza with hip replacement, Cabaret Liza, child Liza, rehab Liza, sixties Liza. Each Liza then says her version of: )

It was such a beautiful day for a tragedy.

(An interpretation of “On a Clear Day” is sung and played. The Lizas sit down except for the piano player, singer, and me, also as Liza. I breathe in and out and giggle like Liza: )

Don’t you wish for the time when the problem was, “Who is sucking Clinton’s dick!!” Please, someone for world peace, suck this president! Is there an intern in the house?!

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I would like to start with tonight’s specials: Manhattans or Big Apple Martinis. Tonight’s appetizer: Dead Man’s Fingers in dipping sauce. The fingers are breaded crab claws with a Dijon or horseradish sauce. We have a Ground Zero Hero. I wish it were vegan but it isn’t. The hero is cut up nicely for any of you concerned with a mess on your lap. For dessert we have Bombs Away sundaes: blueberries and strawberries over vanilla ice cream.

Emotional Fallout

You are going to die when you are going to die. When it’s your time to die it’s your turn to die. You could be next. You could be next in line. This was the reassurance I was paying for from my taxi driver. This was the sensitive nuance applied to my approach to La Guardia.

Hello. Hello. Yes, may I have a taxi to the airport? And yes, can you please be sure to send me a driver who will predict my death on the plane? None available? They are all taken? Well, then, I just want a driver who will consider the possibility of me crashing.

Yep. It could happen again. My driver instructs me. There is nothing you can do about it if it is your turn to die.

You won’t see me going on that plane.

I look out the window. I can’t believe I am hearing this. First I stop breathing and then I hyperventilate. Then I do the reverse routine, which is to make anything into comedy.

I feel if only I can get to Woodstock (“By the time I ge...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Introduction
• MAKE LOVE
• SHE LOVED WARS
• THE PASSION OF TERRI SCHIAVO
• THE DREAMS OF LAURA BUSH
• GEORGE & MARTHA
• NATION BUILDING
• IMPULSE TO SUCK
• THE JACKIE LOOK
• Acknowledgements
• Copyright Page