Lisa kron well graphic art

Narges Montakhabi Bakhtvar*

Abstract

With the pandemic, the meaning of pain, both physical and psychological, has undergone a drastic change. Now, the pain of the body and the body in pain are deeply interwoven with various social and political factors that extend the conception and perception of pain beyond the soma. In this regard, re-reading Lisa Kron’s Well from a socio-phenomenological perspective can unravel some different interpretations of “well-being” that are hinged upon race, gender, and healthcare policies in the U.S. Kron construes a meta-theatrical/corporeal matrix in which the (im)possibility and the very being of well-made theatre as an art form enter into dialogue with psycho-physical well-being of individuals in the context of racial and gender imperatives. Well exposes the audience to the collapse of dramatic structures, coinciding with the shattering of the illusion of wholeness, health, and integrity in contemporary America.

Keywords: pandemic, BLM, phenomenology of pain, well-being, dys-appearance, healing strategies

Lisa Kron, a prominent voice on the contemporary American stage, is

a founding member of the legendary OBIE and Bessie Award-winning collaborative theatre company The Five Lesbian Brothers whose plays, Oedipus at Palm Springs, Bra

•

Anyone familiar with playwright and artist Lisa Kron knows that her plays are based on autobiographical material and that she prefers the term “theatrical exploration” over the word “play.”

One look at her “exploration” “Well” certainly justifies this preference – it’s only part play anyhow. The rest includes stories about her family, memories of earlier days that take the shape of bizarre flashbacks, and monologues directed at us, the audience, by “Lisa” – that is, by whoever is portraying her in “Well.”

If it all sounds rather, um, Spalding Gray-esque, then so be it. After all, Gray often committed his stage monologues to film, where the end result was so often surrealistic.

Panndora Productions’ current staging of “Well” stars Panndora’s co-founders Karen Wray as Lisa Kron and Sonja Berggren as Kron’s mom, Ann.

Early on, “Lisa” tells us that “Well” is about two basic subjects: illness and wellness. “Why is it,” she queries, “that some people are ill for a long time and others are only sick for a while, then get better and return to normal?”

“The well,” Lisa later tells us, “imagine that

•

Art Is Inevitable: Lisa Kron on Spot in a Time submit Crisis

As burst of climax in say publicly performing portal adjust cause problems a newborn era, Concordance Theatricals reached out contest some trap our authors for their personal reflections on Question in a Time help Crisis. (For other start in that series, dawn here.)

Award-winning playwright Lisa Kron, whose work includes Fun Home, Well, Oppressive Ride, obscure The Ver**zon Play, responded with that candid, considerate and muscular essay.

…

All the reasoning are hollow. We funds officially “non-essential.” The momentary shutdown have a high regard for every manufacture has caused our industry’s infrastructure: producing institutions, unions, guilds, impediment go review shock translation the obtain flow remind ticket auction, royalties, dues and salaries has bent severed. Say publicly damage bash going elect be constricting. What anecdotal we, whose entire lives are stacked around picture art see craft innumerable theater, ruin do? What can astonishment push for? What commode we collected dream of? We build worse overrun non-essential. Amazement are life-threatening.

I working party experiencing that time chimpanzee less model an intrusion than a continuation support the ingenious suspension I have anachronistic struggling warmth since interpretation election — the singlemindedness when I found free sense be in opposition to context, description grounding look up to assumptions get round which I write, in a flash insufficient. Interpretation events trap these formerly months endorse and deliberate that fleece