Winner of Best Solo Performance, and best Socio-Political Play at the 2004 Columbus National Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival!
Role of the stage manager performed by Skip Hardesty
House Staff: Rob Shipman, Melissa Byers, Jerry Rabushka, Cory Popkey, Deb Duffin, Randy Arndt
Synopsis:
Labels are so sticky, so opaque, so inconvenient at some moments and such a blessed relief at others. But what happens when labels get larger than the person they describe? What happens when they start intersecting, being incomplete or unclear, taking precedence when you'd rather they didn't? What happens when other people label you in ways that don't quite make sense? When you want to be a part of two different communities, and neither community wants you to wear the other label and theirs at the same time?
Clearly Marked is a hilarious, high-impact, thought-provoking theater piece that peels back the layers of the labels we all wear and digs in to what's underneath.
As Bergman's signature warm and accessible storytelling begins to unfold on the stage, lines between categories start to blur and old labels start to have new lives. Also unique is the loving examination of Jewish tradition and community which Bergman - an observant Jew - brings to the stage. In the revelation of a lifetime's worth of Bergman's accumulated identities, Clearly Marked opens up a place for anyone to be more complicated than the label ze wears on top, and questions the society that demands we wear so few.
Fearless as ever, with Clearly Marked Bergman grapples with religion, body image, gender, sexuality, and the perennial bathroom problem - not to mention life as the Little Jewish Ambassador, how gender is like a highway, being a fat kid, strategic lesbianism, gay marriage, and how to explain it all to your Aunt Petunia in a way that doesn't completely freak her out.
No matter what label you wear when you arrive, Clearly Marked will send you home feeling both different from and connected to everyone around you - and you'll like the feeling.
