Portland Playhouse in Northeast Portland is currently performing "Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous." The play follows four Black women artists as they confront their own and each other’s evolving definitions of art, protest, and storytelling.
Audiences have until March 15 to see performances by Faith Lavon and Ashlee Radney, who play actors of different generations. They join us to discuss the production and its relevance today.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: From the Gert Boyle Studio at OPB, this is Think Out Loud. I’m Dave Miller. “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous” – that’s the name of a play that’s up now at Portland Playhouse in Northeast Portland. It’s also a description of the play’s four characters. Black women, all artists from different generations, who are confronting each other’s and their own evolving definitions of art, protest, storytelling. I’m joined now by two of the performers, Faith Lavon and Ashlee Radney. Welcome to Think Out Loud.
Faith Lavon: Hi!
Ashlee Radney: Hi!
Miller: Faith, when the play starts, your character, Anna, a real diva, who might be in her 50s or 60s or so, though her age is not mentioned …
Lavon: Oh, we talking about age now?
Miller: Well, we do though.
Lavon: Not specifically [laughs]
Miller: OK, fair enough [laughs], but the play is very much about age.
Lavon: Yes.
Miller: But she’s been living in Europe for decades. She went there as a kind of exile after she created this nude one-woman show of August Wilson monologues for male characters. That show, in the play, it became sort of legendary and also notorious. It got pushback from Black audiences, from white audiences, and so she took herself to Europe. But now, when the play starts, she’s coming back. She’s going to have a kind of a grand re-entry in the U.S. And she thinks she’s going to reprise that show.
Why did your character create “Naked Wilson” to begin with?
Lavon: Well, she created it because she felt that August was writing specifically from the male point of view and that he was writing women one dimensional. So she was upset about that. She had done four August Wilson plays in a row. People were telling her how lucky she was. She didn’t feel lucky. She felt like the women had so much more to say than what August was writing.
So she decided to take all of the male monologues, do a one-woman show, and do them naked to call out the misogyny. And that’s what we’re gonna do. And then she got exiled. She’s coming back as a comeback to say, “This is me. I’ve grown, welcome me home, this is a triumphant thing.” And then she wants to do it one last time. This is it and then she’s going to go on a national tour of all her other works.
Miller: What’s your own relationship to August Wilson’s work?
Lavon: Wow, that is such a great question. I have an actual love-hate relationship with August Wilson because of the same things that Pearl Cleage is talking about in “Angry Raucous.”
Miller: The playwright of the current play.
Lavon: Yeah, and the thing about August is that at the time that he’s writing, our culture is ecstatic. It is important work. It’s profound work, and we’re loving it. Then what happens is that we take that beautiful thing, and we do it over and over again, and we don’t want to let it go. So then generations are looking at these plays and it’s the same type of man at that time, and then we get stuck, right?
Also, he doesn’t write for women, in my opinion, full-circle moments for women. They’re beautiful speeches, don’t get me wrong. But they support the male gaze, right? The other thing is he’s male. He’s going to write from the male gaze. He’s a male playwright. So yes, but I feel like our community has stayed within that and it’s hard to break free from that.
Miller: Ashlee, can you introduce us to your character? Her given name is Precious. She goes by the name Pete?
Radney: Yeah, Precious Pete! I would say that she’s electric. She definitely hits the stage like, “I’m here!” And you’re forced to look at her.
Miller: It’s amazing. You walk in a third of the way through. You don’t walk in. You actually, you sort of burst in? [Laughter]
Radney: I strut in. I strut in, like, I’m meant to be here.
Miller: What was it like to take that on?
Radney: For me, I would say it was pretty tough. I’ve expressed, especially in the rehearsal process, that I would say the character is so opposite to who I am. Especially playing a Black woman where, being told that I’m allowed to take up space and to just be like, “I’m here,” that’s not me.
Miller: You’re not allowed to, you have to. Your character only works if you take up space.
Radney: You have to. Exactly, exactly. There were a lot of words I had to relearn and affirmations I had to say to myself, to be able to become this character. The director, Ramona Lisa, she’d just be like, “Just come in like you own it. Don’t shake the hand at the beginning, just like, ‘hey, I’m here.’” And for me, I was like, “oh, I don’t know.” Especially Pete, the character herself, comes in with ideas, she’s ready to share things. She’s like, “you’re already gonna make space for me.” And I feel like anybody naturally would be like, “I’m just happy to be here,” and just be small.
But I’ve really enjoyed playing this character. She’s pretty lively and I’m definitely gonna take pieces of her with me, for sure.
Miller: I want to hear more about that in a second. But Faith, we learned pretty early on that even though your character thinks that she’s going to be doing this one last reprisal of this famous work that she created, she’s not. That’s not the plan. The plan is for Ashlee’s character, Pete, to do this. And Pete is not an actor the way you are. She’s been in adult films and she’s been, basically, a stripper?
Lavon: Yes, basically.
Miller: What’s it like when your character finds that out?
Lavon: She is, on the surface for sure, angry. Hurt. Disappointed. Scared mostly, in fear of being irrelevant.
Miller: It’s fascinating that you ended with scared. You had all these other ones, but you’re saying that, as a performer, you have to recognize that at the bottom of all of that is fear.
Lavon: Absolutely.
Miller: Everything that actors do seems really hard to me [laughter], but keeping that vulnerability, at the core, seems like a real challenge of craft. How do you do that?
Lavon: Thank you so much for saying that. It definitely was a process of taking the work as is first, as the top layer, the words, what’s literally happening. And then the action of feeling like I am going to be erased, or I’m not going to be remembered, or my work is going to be obsolete because someone younger is going to take over. Especially with this particular piece that she’s done in the play. It was a FU to the world and whoever was looking. “You are going to look at me, even if it’s naked.”
Miller: It’s her creation.
Lavon: It’s her creation. She’s taking August Wilson male monologues. Doing them, as a piece, fully naked. You know what I mean?
So layering that, she starts off with … she’s worried about how people at home are going to look at her. She’s worried about, is this actually going to work? Are people going to really follow her and do the tour? So there’s a level of anxiety. And then the gal who plays Betty, who’s my friend in the play, she’s reassuring her. But I’m unsure. Also on top of that, being a diva, you really don’t want people outside to see you scared or you know popping off.
Miller: It breaks the magic of the perfect diva?
Lavon: Absolutely. While she doesn’t mind being a diva at all – that’s the fun part – to people that she really knows, but then you have to put that diva on. “I’m not scared. I’m fighting for what I believe in, what I want. Of course this is for me.”
Miller: Is there any diva in you?
Lavon: Of course. [Laughter] Yeah. OK. All right.
Radney: Yes, yes, yes.
Miller: We’ll get the answer from you, Ashlee?
Radney: In all the best ways though too.
Lavon: Clean it up, clean it up! Yeah, I am – what do I want to say – a purposeful diva for good.
Miller: OK, what do those words mean?
Lavon: That means that I will speak up for myself. I’m very clear and direct. But I have one of the sweetest, kindest hearts. I will work hard to get those things done. I’m an advocate for people who have trouble speaking up for themselves. I teach my girls how to speak up for themselves. That part of it, that’s what I like about the divas that I come across. Not the divas who are like, “if you don’t put all of the green M&M’s in one bowl, I’m upset.”
Miller: You’re saying you’re a diva, but you’re a more generous, less selfish version of a diva?
Lavon: The good side of what that is. Sometimes I think we all … I mean, to me, all young ladies need to be divas at some point.
Miller: Ashlee, at one point, Faith’s character says to you – and this is in the context of why she doesn’t think your character is right for this – not only that you don’t know August Wilson’s plays, you don’t have the history that she has as an actor, but she also says this: “You get naked all the time. You’re not risking anything. When you perform with your clothes off, unlike what I did 30 years ago or whatever, where there was a real risk, when your character does, it’s not.”
What’s your interpretation of the risks that your character is taking?
Radney: That’s a really great question. It’s so funny because I only just recently thought about what that actually meant to Pete. In the sense of, I am risking everything, especially working in the sex industry. There’s a lot of risk. You have to be vulnerable. You have to be open. There’s risk of the people who are in the room, men who are around, STDs. There’s a lot of vulnerability doing that. But also, it’s unfortunate that people look at sex workers as if they aren’t artists themselves.
Especially, my character speaks up about Nina Hartley and how this is a woman who decided to just make her own way and start to do her own productions of porn films. That is art in itself. My character’s not just a stripper. She’s also a burlesque dancer. She does it all, within that world. At the end of the day, she wants to be seen as an artist. And that’s really hard because people cast judgment upon those individuals as well. And yeah, I think that’s how I can answer it.
Miller: How would you describe the generational conflict that is, at one of the pieces, at the heart of the play, the tensions between your two characters, specifically, from the generations themselves?
Radney: Oh, definitely. I know we touched on the idea of having … The older generation always wants respect when someone comes in. But I also had mentioned it’s also about allowing space for newcomers to come on. And usually, people are like, “you have to be able to pay homage and respect those who came before you.” And I know when Pete hits the room, I don’t think she’s meaning to come off as disrespectful. She’s just excited to share her ideas and she’s like, “Oh, this is my crew now. I’m up here with you.” She sees them on the same level as her. Because she’s made it.
And then, especially with a room full of Black women, she’s hoping to be accepted and taken on, but then she’s rejected. That is so true in today’s world as of like the older generation of women rejecting or looking down on the younger women and not giving us space to be a part of that, like be with them. Instead, it’s like, there’s just so many things to it.
Miller: You switched there a little bit, talking generally to the first person there talking about your own experience. So you have felt that disrespect from older generations?
Radney: Oh my gosh, of course. It’s a generational thing. People talk about generational traumas. I know Faith had said it’s also like a patriarchy type thing as well. I think that’s why I connected with Pete the most too, was I know what it’s like. I think any woman, especially Black women, just go into a room anywhere you go, being rejected, being judged, being seen as a diva automatically. Even if I’m just quiet, somebody’s gonna be like, “That’s a diva. I don’t like that person.”
Miller: You haven’t even opened your mouth yet?
Radney: Yeah.
Lavon: The way you look or the way you come in. We were talking about the other side of that coin. I was having a conversation with my oldest daughter. Her name is also Ashlee. We were talking about how, in looking at the play, she realized just older women doing the thing, that her being more respectful of that work, because she’s going to be there one day. So in the moment, finding that through-line of respect.
It depends on where you grow up, who you’re around, that you have those experiences with. I grew up with having some respect for older people. But at the same time, I always say, just because you get older, you don’t get old people points. I mean, you yourself have to also be respectful, whether you’re 20, 30, 40, 50, 60. So what Ashlee was saying about leaving room for the younger generation to have their own thing or put their spin off of something and being loving with that. What ends up happening is that that conflict ends up happening because of the patriarchy. Where we’re fighting against each other, we’re trying to get this because we’re trying to get the male gaze, or we want to be more popular here, here, there, because the male gaze.
When you stop and really look at it, and invite, as women, as Black women, into the room, we’re going to do this together or show the way. Oh my gosh, it’s so much more profound, and better, and loving, and important. So that’s one of the reasons why I love this place so much. Because Anna comes full circle in that moment of just going, “wow.” Not only just looking at her own journey, but how can she actually give back and pass that down.
It’s hard, in the moment, because it wasn’t done for her. She left in exile. You know what I mean? She left because it wasn’t looked upon or respected by the people at the time when she was younger. So it’s a protection thing as well.
Miller: Ashlee and Faith, it’s great to have both of you on the show. Thanks so much and congratulations.
Lavon: Thank you.
Radney: Thanks for having us.
Miller: Ashlee Radney and Faith Lavon are two of the performers in the play, “Angry, Raucous, and Shamelessly Gorgeous.” It’s at Portland Playhouse right now in its West Coast premiere. It’s open now through March 15.
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