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Austin360 blogs > Austin Arts: Seeing Things > Archives > 2009 > March > 30 > Entry
Texas Biennial brims with brio: 4
Oh, Jill Pangallo is so funny. But mostly she is smart. And when she weaves funny and smart together as she did Friday night with “Let Me Entertain You,” her solo show presented as part of the Texas Biennial, she comes up with something poignant and a little painful in its truth telling.
Conceived, written and performed by Pangallo, “Let Me Entertain You” was nonetheless culled from writings, emails and notes by 11 of Pangallo’s peers who respond to her email asking for “donated” writing. The theme? Identity.
About 200 people braved a freakishly cold and windy spring night on Friday to fill the seats at the Fiesta Gardens stage and courtyard, a modest municipal facility with its own identity problem of sorts. (It’s plays host to everything from community fundraisers to quincenañeras.)
To such a motley stage, and with a certain do-it-yourself production value of over-the-top costumes and campy style, Pangallo brought a cast of equally motley characters. Some appeared via video; others we saw live.
There was a painfully shallow couple who met on one reality show and auditioned for another. A dowdy woman who found comfort and meaning via YouTube cat videos. An anxious college student who spilled her heart to an answering machine. Even the eccentricities of a Renaissance fair don’t have room for the fantasy self of Pangallo’s sad characters.
These are 21st-century lonelyhearts — people whose ability to communicate has become over-mediated by media to the point that they are trapped by their own utter inability to communicate at all.
That’s sad. It’s also comical. In Pangallo’s hands, it’s Facebook-age schadenfreude writ live and on stage. (Pangallo’s all-too-true monologue about Facebook’s time-sucking erstaz communication made for a real highlight.)
Pangallo understands that ultimately, performance art has to be theater, no matter what conceptual conceits are foisted on it. And theater is what she delivered.
After all, like she said, she was there to entertain us.
Photo: Jill Pangallo as P.J. Chavez.
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By vinny
April 1, 2009 3:24 PM | Link to this
great show—-i agree with Jeanne—-also can you bring home some tender viddlesTM and some salmon, and im due for some furminating. love, vincent
By Helen Neville
March 30, 2009 6:29 PM | Link to this
Jill, Your mom shared this with us. It sounded fantastic. I hope someone did a video of it so we could see it. Hope to see you and Michael at Easter. love, Helen