bodies that matter—and that don't: corey dargel's removable parts

Once, in a dorm-room twin bed, a boy and I tossed and turned together, trying to fit all of our body parts in the diminutive space.  We joked that we each clearly had one arm too many, and wouldn’t it be swell if we were all born with only one arm so as to allow us to fit into each other without the offending limb crimping, numbing, and generally getting in the way between us.   

Corey Dargel’s Removable Parts, showing at HERE Arts Center until 15 September, takes this affectionately macabre thought a step or ten further in its cabaret-like portrayal of “the history and development of voluntary amputation.”

Voluntary amputation, a symptom of “Body Integrity Identity Disorder,” or BIID, is a pathological desire to have one’s body match one’s ideal of it—but, as musician and favorite blogger Darcy James Argue asks in the accompanying program notes (which are nearly as much fun as the performance), “who doesn’t want their body to match the idealized image they have of themselves?” The difference is, as Argue continues, “would-be amputees […] have an idealized self-image that might seem grotesque and unfathomable.”  Corey, in a fabulous three-button tux, and pianist Kathleen Supové, with her tres chic red red hair and super pink cocktail dress, make the potentially “grotesque and unfathomable” familiar and even charming in the twelve quirky songs and in-between witty repartee that comprise the show.   

I’ve known Corey’s music since we were at Oberlin together (though in different years), and I should admit to listening as I type this to his first CD Less Famous Than You.  The music and lyrics throughout Removable Parts offers the same tripping lightly rhythms and melodic peripatetics without ever leaving the pop-inflected harmonic ground as Less Famous, and, much like the happiest stalker song ever, “Every Word Means So Much To Me,” from the CD, Removable Parts sweetly offers up fingers, knees, toes, and everything in between and beyond in the name of love—which, really, isn’t so difficult to imagine.  Even the voice becomes a removable part, as Corey lip syncs the final song, “Everybody Wannabe,” to a computerized voice—his own cords given up so he will never have to say goodbye. 

As much as I love the music, it is Corey’s and Kathleen’s presence that makes Removable Parts as successful as it is—as well as the entire design and production of the show.  Raquel Davis’s lighting and design is as sharp as it is subtle: The stage is bare excepting the piano, speakers, a paper shredder, and far stage left a small table on which sets a glass, a pack of Lucky Strikes and lighter, and a bottle of Johnny Walker black label; from the ceiling hang just enough bare light bulbs that sometimes light singly (perhaps a pun on a ‘bright idea’) and sometimes flicker like a dreamy starlit sky.  Yvan Greenberg’s geometrically inclined choreography—all lines and angles throughout Corey’s songs and the brief dance sequences—is delightfully awkward, allowing the (I imagine) fully limbed Corey and Kathleen to become uncomfortable in their own bodies, just as if there might be too many parts.

All comes together under Emma Griffin’s direction, which incorporates the entire theatrical structure into the performance (Kathleen putting the Xeroxed score through a shredder after each song—disposable music? another part of us that can be thrown off and away?)—and makes even the lighting grid part of the conversation.  Just before “Everybody Wannabe,” Corey asks Kathleen, “What are you thinking about when you play?” and the lighting gels spin as she considers the question. 

Tiny moments of brilliance that might be missed if you blink suffuse the show, and all is done with an absolute attention to detail.  Perhaps it is biased on my part to surmise this, but I can’t help but think that not only does Corey bring his many talents in classical contemporary Western composition to his songs, but also to the technical aptitude of his performance.  There is not a stutter throughout Removable Parts that isn’t intentional, not a fumble that isn’t precisely staged.  And while I did pause over the fact that while Corey was granted full exploration of his parts, Kathleen seemed rather stuck in a somewhat more prosaic contemplation of voluntary amputation as a means of weight loss (“a leg weighs forty pounds!”), this slightly gendered dichotomy certainly does speak to a different aspect of amputation and bodily mutilation.

More significantly, Corey accords the lyrics a politically conscious attention to detail—and always has—that reflects the attention accorded the performance and production. We are, to our pleasure and not so much, of our bodies—though our bodies are not always only of us.  We constantly extend ourselves through various cybernetic appendages and even as we traipse the light fantastic of internet camaraderie, our bodies float behind us as a reminder of our corporeality. The desire then to rid ourselves of these extraneous bits that can’t help but get in the way is not really strange or macabre at all.  And what in other hands, or hooks!, might become insensitive, in Corey’s takes on a grace of its own.

Comments

[DJA]

which are nearly as much fun as the performance

You are far too kind. But they were definitely fun to write.

Also, you should have introduced yourself!