Imagine a circle of friends asking a new couple in their group, “How did you two get together?” Imagine the playful banter as the couple retells that fateful meeting. Did they find each other attractive? Who made the first move? What were the highlights of their first date? All this together is the plot for Steve Yockey’s uproarious and heart-rending “Venus.”
Beth and Nicole, the couple, are already dead at the show’s opening. The play follows them as they share the intimate details that led to their deaths and the roles each played.
All human beings have a need to connect with others. Over a lifetime, Beth and Nicole each carefully developed strategies and coping mechanisms to navigate this need. The audience watches their strategies metamorphose into escalating, linked traumas.
Venus, in the words of Woolly’s director Reggie D. White, is a “fun house mirror of our psyches.”
Yockey’s portrait of the two maintains a reverence for their humanity reflected in his casting of Regina Aquino and Kimberly Gilbert. Aquino plays the prim and orderly Nicole. Gilbert plays the “bull in a china shop” Beth. These two meticulously accept and inhabit their characters’ given circumstances. Their costumes, designed by Danielle Preston, incorporate iconic DMV looks: She clothes Beth in multi-colored shirts and blue jeans, while Nicole’s sports precisely creased mid-calf skirts and draped blouses.
Where the costumes are realistic, the set, lights, and sound eerily reflect the characters’ inner lives and propel them towards an inevitable outcome. The performance space is hung with a variety of vintage lamps that rise and fall unpredictably. During an outing in the country, the stars glow intensely against a velvety black background. The planet Venus first appears large and mysterious, as if possessing magical powers. Its as if the entire stage stands still.
The plot plays with, and skewers, the age-old stereotypes of lesbians in mass media’s tragic portrayal of Queer relationships. However, the play deftly avoids being a political screed.
Set in a universe that veers between the magical and the terrifying, Venus leaves the audience exhilarated.
Venus runs through October 4 at Woolly Mammoth Theatre. Here is the link for tickets.
Gregory Ford is the Anacostia Coordinating Council Arts & Culture Critic. He is also an actor and singer. He is a member of Verbal Gymnastics Playback Theater troupe. He has written for Capital Community News and continues to write for dctheaterarts.org, focusing on College and University Theater Productions. He is a clinical psychodrama practitioner. Mr. Ford lives in Northeast Boundary in Ward 7.
