Take Me Somewhere
The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein:Notorious
Tramway, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
two stars
Now in its third year at venues across Glasgow, Take Me Somewhere is again deploying contemporary performance work to make us examine the socio-political issues that affect us all – and, in the process, question our own attitudes to them. Enter Lauren Barri Holstein in her assumed personna of ‘The Famous...’. Off-stage, Holstein has a proven academic side, researching contemporary feminism, popular culture, and ‘ugly feelings’.
On-stage she channels that research into a performance of waywardly explicit actions that are intended to shock and yet entertain us – it’s a very tricky tightrope to negotiate and Holstein, together with her collaborators Krista Vuori and Brogan Davison, probably raises more laughs than eyebrows (or indeed thoughtful awareness) with the grotesquerie that involves sourcing gloopy-gummy snake sweets from her vagina or flagellating herself with a dead octopus.
Did this imagery – snake, tentacles – lead audiences to think ‘oh yes, Medusa – that much-maligned woman’ or did they laugh in disconcerted glee at a cabaret of self-inflicted punishment with a pop music soundtrack?
Holstein herself is aware of how this tack of exposing herself so graphically – with live video streaming ensuring that close-ups of naked genitals and probing fingers loom large on the backcloth – can maybe detract/distract from her avowed serious intent.
Towards the end, slumped in an armchair, she delivers a monologue that says as much, but then flips that into yet another ‘false facade’ because no matter how much she strips away, morphing from the grey-spectral witch of the opening sequences to the hula-hooping Lolita who burps her fizzy drink so cutely, it’s always Holstein’s ‘alter-ego’ The Famous who’s acting up.
So is Notorious more than the sum of Holstein’s private parts? At times, yes. In an overlong 90 minutes there are moments of shrewd wit and fleeting beauty with Yvonne Strain valiantly entering into the mood and almost-costumes as the on-stage BSL interpreter.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here