Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
The Wholehearted at La Jolla Playhouse
Today’s story packaged for superficial entertainment and exploitation
Suli Holum as Dee
Christy Martin wore pink as a boxer and posing for the cover of Sports Illustrated. When her husband and trainer for 20 years thought she was having an affair, he stabbed her three times in the side, then fired a nine-millimeter Glock at her heart. One of her last thoughts, after she shouted “You can’t kill me!”: she knew it was her gun; it was pink.
The Wholehearted
- La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, UCSD
Martin recovered. In 2013 she testified on Capitol Hill to support the “Protesting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act.”
Deborah Stein based her solo piece, The Wholehearted, on Martin’s story, with differences. Christy is now Dee Flaxon, “pound for pound the best female boxer on Earth,” as her 48-7-1 record attests (she brags she’s better than Laila Ali, daughter of “the Greatest”). She’s making a comeback after Charlie, her abusive husband of 20 years, committed violence that even the “sweet science” couldn’t defend. ESPN tells her story as does an interview with a smiley, shallow morning-show host.
Christy’s fired up. She’s in training — and in hiding from Charlie. He’s free from prison today for time served and will be back at their Tampa home. Along with vowing go get even, Dee composes a video letter to Carmen, the love of her life. It’s a confession, laced with the hope that Carmen can forgive her for running off with a man 26 years older.
But will Carmen still be at her Bakersfield home after 20 years, still waiting for Dee? Or is the confession some sort of compensatory fantasy all in Dee’s head?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Wholehearted: private and public use of media. At the Potiker Theatre, a mini JumboTron above a ropeless boxing ring screens videos of Dee’s fights, Dee’s interviews, and her public life. But it’s just today’s story packaged for superficial entertainment and exploitation.
Dee speaks into a handheld camera, which shows up on a TV monitor (visible to only half the audience), and a live cameraman all in black follows her around (and even shadow-boxes with her at one point). This is her confession to Carmen, dripping with emotion, heartache, and hope. The contrast between the public and the personal is striking.
As are the country and western songs sung by various voices, including Charlie, but his “Elvis Presley in flip-flops” vocal cartoons him way too much.
Although there’s a sag in the middle, the 65-minute, deliberately hectic piece runs at a “Breaking News” clip. The quick nonlinear jumps are a strength — media overload distorts and conceals as much as it reveals — and a weakness, since they gloss over key information, as if the audience already knew the story.
Wholehearted has the feel of a work-in-progress, but an important one and definitely worth seeing for its myriad means of communication, and for Suli Holum’s boldly honest, quintuple-skilled performance as Dee, a once fearless woman who faced the horror of evil and found the inner resources to fight back, in her own way.
Playing through December 18
Here's something you might be interested in.
The Wholehearted at La Jolla Playhouse
Today’s story packaged for superficial entertainment and exploitation
The Wholehearted at La Jolla Playhouse
Today’s story packaged for superficial entertainment and exploitation
Suli Holum as Dee
Christy Martin wore pink as a boxer and posing for the cover of Sports Illustrated. When her husband and trainer for 20 years thought she was having an affair, he stabbed her three times in the side, then fired a nine-millimeter Glock at her heart. One of her last thoughts, after she shouted “You can’t kill me!”: she knew it was her gun; it was pink.
The Wholehearted
- La Jolla Playhouse, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive, UCSD
Martin recovered. In 2013 she testified on Capitol Hill to support the “Protesting Domestic Violence and Stalking Victims Act.”
Deborah Stein based her solo piece, The Wholehearted, on Martin’s story, with differences. Christy is now Dee Flaxon, “pound for pound the best female boxer on Earth,” as her 48-7-1 record attests (she brags she’s better than Laila Ali, daughter of “the Greatest”). She’s making a comeback after Charlie, her abusive husband of 20 years, committed violence that even the “sweet science” couldn’t defend. ESPN tells her story as does an interview with a smiley, shallow morning-show host.
Christy’s fired up. She’s in training — and in hiding from Charlie. He’s free from prison today for time served and will be back at their Tampa home. Along with vowing go get even, Dee composes a video letter to Carmen, the love of her life. It’s a confession, laced with the hope that Carmen can forgive her for running off with a man 26 years older.
But will Carmen still be at her Bakersfield home after 20 years, still waiting for Dee? Or is the confession some sort of compensatory fantasy all in Dee’s head?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Wholehearted: private and public use of media. At the Potiker Theatre, a mini JumboTron above a ropeless boxing ring screens videos of Dee’s fights, Dee’s interviews, and her public life. But it’s just today’s story packaged for superficial entertainment and exploitation.
Dee speaks into a handheld camera, which shows up on a TV monitor (visible to only half the audience), and a live cameraman all in black follows her around (and even shadow-boxes with her at one point). This is her confession to Carmen, dripping with emotion, heartache, and hope. The contrast between the public and the personal is striking.
As are the country and western songs sung by various voices, including Charlie, but his “Elvis Presley in flip-flops” vocal cartoons him way too much.
Although there’s a sag in the middle, the 65-minute, deliberately hectic piece runs at a “Breaking News” clip. The quick nonlinear jumps are a strength — media overload distorts and conceals as much as it reveals — and a weakness, since they gloss over key information, as if the audience already knew the story.
Wholehearted has the feel of a work-in-progress, but an important one and definitely worth seeing for its myriad means of communication, and for Suli Holum’s boldly honest, quintuple-skilled performance as Dee, a once fearless woman who faced the horror of evil and found the inner resources to fight back, in her own way.
Playing through December 18
Comments