The Condition Of Femme Reviews
Chicago Reader- Highly Recommended
"...The ambiguity and omnipresence of inconspicuous violence against women and femmes is the strength of The Condition of Femme, in which playwright Lauren Marie Powell is Reagan, a rape crisis hotline counselor recalling the traumas of eleven callers. Their experiences, delivered as monologues by a skilled cast, range from encounters with strangers to unwanted experiences with friends to overt brutality. They have no resolution—first, they need to be heard and believed. Twenty-two years after The Vagina Monologues, the rage and reality of this play shows that women still don’t own their bodies."
Windy City Times- Recommended
"...was thrilled the production centered a spectrum of femme experience, and included femmes of color and transgender femmes. However, it struck me that though there are only two visible performers of color out of 12, much of the media in the projections design is attributed to Black and brown bodies. "Whistle While You Twerk," by the Ying Yang Twins, accompanies a montage of white women being spanked."
Chicago Stage and Screen- Highly Recommended
"...The production engages a broad audience. The themes only touch on a small fraction of circumstances like religion, virgin guilt, workplace harassment and just being a female minding your own business. Those silenced by their circumstances like Zoey Wendorf’s portrayal of transgender Isabella or Michelle Bester’s character Mae having a witness to her assault. All those who identify as femme has this shared experience as a gender to a varying degree or are witness to it. This production transcends into an emotionally wrought space told through a compiled narrative of many, many women+. All are valid. All deserve to be heard. The culture needs to change. We, as a society, need to change…and do better."
Third Coast Review- Somewhat Recommended
"...Overall, The Condition of Femme is a mixed bag. There are some wonderfully portrayed stories and some truly thought-provoking moments, and Powell injects needed humor to ease the tension of such a fraught subject matter. But there are wrong turns, in both acting and writing, that make me wish for something more or something deeper. Its message is important, and these women’s stories are unforgettable, but The Condition of Femme seems to me stuck in its almost-but-not-quite space."
Picture This Post- Recommended
"...THE CONDITION OF FEMME uses the hotline worker’s emotional evolution as a framing device. For this viewer, it was not only unnecessary but also the only soft spot in an otherwise firm show. The entire cast is up to the job of making the individual stories so gripping, they create their own dramatic arc. We listen, we believe, we are unnerved."