Credit: Larisa Faber / neimënster
Chronicle.lu got the opportunity to sit in on the opening night performance of Larisa Faber's new feminist play, stark bollock naked, at Neumünster Abbey (neimënster) in Luxembourg-Grund on Tuesday evening.
Originally scheduled for performance last year, but postponed due to COVID-19, the premiere of stark bollock naked fittingly fell on International Women’s Day this year.
Around 60 people gathered in an intimate dark corner of the large Salle Robert Krieps at neimënster for Larisa Faber's humorous take on the biological clock and the many pressures facing women today.
The play starts with Larisa Faber on stage literally stark bollock naked. She is joined by Luxembourgish composer Catherine Kontz, who begins by putting tape around Ms Faber's naked body - onto which various images are projected throughout the play. The piece centres around a dialogue between the two women, with Ms Kontz playing an inventive range of percussive gynaecological instruments and providing other sound effects, accompanied by body mapping and screen projections.
Larisa Faber's character goes for her yearly gynaecological check-up. Each year after her 30th birthday, the pressure to have a child builds, with her gynaecologist warning her that the (biological) clock is ticking. The main character becomes obsessed with having a child and eventually gets depressed. But does she really want a child or is this just what society has taught her to believe she should want?
This two-woman show approaches important women's issues such as fertility, relationships and abortion with a touch of humour, making fun of the common phrase: “Women today can have it all”. Trigger warning: there is also mention of suicide.
Stark bollock naked is absurd at times, for instance when the left and right brain hemispheres (played by Larisa Faber and Catherine Kontz) begin singing and dancing, but it is entertaining from start to finish (as demonstrated by the audience's frequent laughter) and after all, does this not represent the absurdity of society’s expectations of women?
The performance received a thunderous ovation. It was followed by a premiere after-party at Oscar's Bar, just down the street from neimënster.
Additional performances of stark bollock naked are scheduled to take place from Wednesday 9 to Saturday 12 March 2022, each day at 20:00. Tickets cost €22 (reduced price: €9; Kulturpass: €1.50) and reservations are required via email: billetterie@neimenster.lu or via tel.: 26 20 52 - 1.
