A tragicomic send-up of a show about a kooky bisexual performance artist and incest survivor. Written & performed by Kim Katzberg. Directed by John Harlacher. Original Animation by Maia Cruz Palileo.
Penetrating The Space is a tragicomic send-up of a one-woman show in which a kooky bisexual performance artist and incest survivor mistakenly believes that theatricalizing her psychological fragmentation and integration in front of an audience will lead to mainstream acceptance in the acting industry and a big-time agent. The show is innovative in the way in which it both delves into and lovingly parodies the psyche of a sex abused, bisexual woman who is struggling with her issues with men in todays world. One of the aims of Penetrating The Space is to explore the loneliness of someone who doesn‘t fit into the mainstream theater world. It runs for about fifty minutes and is a multi-media collaboration with original animation by Maia Cruz Palileo, original songs by me, and videos shot by John Harlacher.
The show is inspired by my relationship with my Dad and with men in general. I enrolled in Matt Hoverman’s solo show workshop in September of 2009 and gave birth to the main character Jinny Jikkyl. Jinny is a combination of the pretentious theater people who I worked with in graduate school at Columbia, my wild and untamed unconscious, and my un-recovered damaged disassociated self who is desperate for acceptance. The characters that Jinny Jikkyl creates for her one-woman show are all extreme aspects of my personality. Purple Horse Girl is the Tennessee William’s-esque, overtly extroverted perverted self..Pockets the Puppet is the submissive, daddy pleasing good girl. Wolf Girl is the half wolf/half girl, twenty-something, narcissistic, body-obsessed actress who obviously doesn’t fit in with the rest of the actresses and yet is desperate to make it in the mainstream acting world.
And then there’s Terry, Jinny’s sponsor from Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous- a stripper in her thirties with a mud-flapish white-trash rock and roll frosted on the edges hair-do. She dances to a smooth jazz mix as she works the late night shift at a suicide prevention hotline. She wears a velveteen tight leopard one-piece outfit and has long-ass fake nails and says she is newly sober but is high as a kite on some kind of sedatives. Terry is my hedonistic, sex worker, I don’t give a fuck self. Terry is in recovery and has some insights about men to offer Jinny, who at the end of the first act of the show, has spiraled out of control, having been triggered by a man.
Penetrating the Space is as much about my issues with men as it is about my feelings of being a weirdo who has always struggled as an outsider in the midst of the mainstream.
I ride a 6 foot long stuffed purple horse topless, talk shit about Steve Winwood’s bunghole wearing a Bluetooth bottomless, and sing about rape fantasies- to mention a few little tidbits from the show. I hope the audience comes away feeling less alone in their perversions and crazy idiosyncrasies after they see Penetrating the Space.
