SMU theater majors are presenting the area premiere of Suzan-Lori Parks’ “Venus,” one of her most acclaimed works, this weekend.
“Venus,” the 1996 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play, recounts the true story of Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman (1789-1816), widely known as the “Venus Hottentot.”
Brought to England from southern Africa with the promise of wealth and fame as a dancer, Venus becomes a caged side-show act, exhibiting her oversized posterior.
After being prostituted by her “mother-showman,” Venus is sold to a French surgeon who studies her physical oddities with his medical colleagues.
The two begin a fervent affair, ending when the surgeon sells Venus to an animal trainer who exhibits her in the same circus-like fashion in Paris.
Dying at 26 from either a venereal disease or pneumonia, a cast of Venus’ body and her skeleton were put on public display and returned to Africa this past May. It was buried in August on South Africa’s Woman’s Day, 186 years after her death.
The play examines the complex relationship among race, gender and class.
It also questions whether physical abnormalities constitute a “freak,” or if it is instead the psychological irregularities and human cruelty that demonstrate a “freak.”
Director and SMU professor Rhonda Blair said, “Parks. . . has refused to write a comfortable play about an uncomfortable story.”
The discomfort is widely felt by the audience, evoked to an uncertain laughter at awkward scenes including masturbation, despite the humiliation and personal horror the story reveals.
However, the cast embraces the sexual bizarreness of the show, executing it to the maximum, and staying true to the author’s intent.
The strongest elements of the show come from the collaboration of the chorus, made up of nine theater students, who play a myriad of characters throughout the production and offer light, comic moments.
The cast’s vocal work is also impressive. They speak with nearly flawless, comprehensible accents.
Jerrika D. Hinton gives an impressive performance as Venus, showing the softer, naive side of the character desperate for love, as well as her innate greed.
“This Saartjie has every human appetite and desire,” Blair said. “But most of all she desires to be loved. To be seen. Which is very different from being looked at.”
Venus is showing at the Greer Garson Theater Friday at 8 p.m, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m. Student tickets are $6 with ID.
