Writer: ELOINA
Director: Louise Orwin
When she first appears on stage, performance artist ELOINA wears an oversized accordion that runs from her neck to her knees. “Someone told me it would be rude to come onstage naked,” she jokes. She then removes the accordion to reveal that she is wearing only two slices of beef hanging between her legs, covered by a pubic bush of herbal foliage.
Society places a huge amount of shame on exposing or even discussing our bodies. Left unchecked, that shame builds up into fear, self-hatred and other neuroses. For ELOINA, the parts in question are the labia, hence the meat and parsley.
Taboos around our own anatomy can lead us not to seek medical attention for fear of talking about them, or – like several of the taped conversations that play as part of ELOINA’s piece, High Steaks – desire cosmetic procedures to “correct” normal anatomical variance.
Such material is handled with a light, non-sexual, and warmly comedic way to introduce the audience into what ELOINA deems a safe space (for both the audience and herself, she says, “so don’t be weird”). She discusses the shame she felt at 10 years old, being told by a fellow schoolgirl that her labia looked like a mum’s and deciding that she needed labioplasty.
As ELOINA sits on top of a glistening chrome work surface – part industrial kitchen, part hospital mortuary table – she takes the beef, pummels it and then cuts the thin filets into strips. Her pubic herbs are chopped up, and mixed with peppers and garlic to form a chimichurri as the performer guides us through the anatomical truths and shame-inducing mistruths of the vulva and its constituent parts.
The taped interview recordings play throughout, collecting impressions from cis, non-binary and trans voices, all with different relationships with their genital anatomy. Like ELOINA herself, these conversations span the silly and humorous to the serious, and occasionally distressing – one participant talks about taking scissors into the bath, determined to perform some “corrective” adjustments herself.
But despite including such moments in the show, ELOINA generally keeps the mood light. She is an engaging, occasionally clownish, naturally funny presence on stage, such that even when inviting the room to view her own labia, and with one audience member sketching them, ELOINA always takes care to ensure that there is warm laughter.
This welcoming, taboo-busting experience is helped by the presence of ELOINA’s mother, who frequently pops on stage to assist her daughter. The pair discuss how the mother’s efforts to be open with her daughter may not have prevented the 10-year-old from feeling shame, but they have helped the older ELOINA on a path to removing that shame for others.
By the end, ELOINA takes the thin strips of beef made from the steaks she once wore and cooks them on stage before eating them. This powerful act transforms the shameful caricature of the labia into a symbol of sustenance and nourishment.
But it’s also the culmination of an hour of humour and self-acceptance. Whether we were born with labia or other anatomy, there is much to gain from ELOINA’s frankness and humour. We may not put ourselves as physically on display as she does, but there is a sense that, metaphorically at least, we can all remove the accordion that we are hiding behind.
Continues until 23 March 2024
The Reviews Hub Score
Warmly humorous evening
