[2013055] The Unstoppable, Unsung Story of Shaky M
Rowena Hutson @ The Tuxedo Cat – Yellow Room
7:15pm, Sun 24 Feb 2013
There’s not a massive crowd in for this performance – maybe only a baker’s dozen or so – and, as is my wont, I encourage people to sit as far forward as possible. The plump and colourful cushions that adorn the seats of the first couple of rows seem to put people off, though; it’s almost as if they were deemed to be markers of that dreaded Audience Participation that everyone loves to avoid just slightly more than they love to watch.
As it turns out, there’s precious little audience interaction in The Unstoppable, Unsung Story of Shaky M (but the cushions did indeed play a part). Rowena Hutson’s eponymous character comes onstage with a broad grin, an oversized “M” t-shirt, and a noticeably shaking leg; she remains mute throughout, communicating only through a giant notebook pre-populated with story beats. She engages in some physical material that would best be described as clowning – there’s humour and spectacle to be found in her physicality – but there’s also some more elaborate set-pieces, too; after wordlessly encouraging the audience to throw their cushions onstage, she (slowly, due to the shaking leg) fashioned a crash pad into which her “friend” flew on her wheelchair (to the strains of Danger Zone). The wheelchair then proceeded to wander off the front of the stage, and I “caught” it with my foot… Shaky M was grateful :)
Hutson’s character appears grinningly happy most of the time; it’s as if she’s genuinely revelling in her world (a world which seemed to feature a recurring Back to the Future motif). In fact, the only time a smile leaves her face are when she flickers with determination during a tricky task (the shaking leg being a demonstrable impediment), or when she eats Smarties… and that had me thinking that the Smarties were pills – unwanted medication. And that started me thinking that Shaky M was a disabled kid; but there’s elements of her actions – a sneaky sense of humour, a raw intelligence – that belied the expectations that are associated with “disabled”.
It’s only upon reading the programme after-the-fact that I learn that The Unstoppable, Unsung Story of Shaky M is Hutson’s response to her mother’s battle with Parkinson’s Disease; this explains the shaking, for sure, but it also makes the constant Back to the Future references make sense, too (via Michael J. Fox‘s common affliction).
But it also raised a bit of a pointed question within me: for the majority of the performance, I’d looked at Shaky M’s quivering limb and pigeonholed her as “disabled”: I’d scooted around the fringes of the symptoms, contemplating whether they were the result of retardation or “just” a form of palsy, but my final conclusion left her in that pigeonhole. And so I’m left to wonder whether it’s funny – or, more likely, just sad – that I managed to conflate Parkinson’s Disease (or any other malady or state) with “being disabled”… and I’m left to try and sort out what I do about that. In my own head, like.
So: The Unstoppable, Unsung Story of Shaky M. A curious, thought-provoking, clowning experience that lingers with you in the most accusatory way. Now there’s a sentence I never thought I’d ever write.