Trance For Matron

Trance For Matron is about being old, from the point of view of one old woman caught up in an ecological disaster. I performed in a small room with the audience sitting around three of the walls. I was a mere foot or two away from some members of the audience at all times.

I think the most important thing for me in this piece was my choice to reveal my body. The play was essentially a very slow strip show as the character told the story of her life: how, swept out of her old folks’ home by a tsunami, she has ended up in this room with this group of people. I started covered in plastic and many layers of clothing, and slowly removed layer after layer until, with a send up of a strip act choreographed by Holly Gauthier-Frankel. As I sang along, I took off the last layer of clothing to reveal my old limbs in nothing but a bright red silk petticoat.

There were mixed feelings about this (minimal) showing of my body. A friend, a decade older than I, was in tears of joy as she felt I had nailed what it feels like to be old, and she was delighted that I had revealed my body. A man in his 30s was horrified that I had done such a thing, which he felt had been an obscene gesture on my part. Who, he asked, on the Fringe comment board, wants to see a woman’s body that old?