[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of Barbara Brady’s new solo play, My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection, part of the Soaring Solos Stars Series.
Barbara Brady explores the history of a family oddity. Her uncle Jay. When she and her sisters were young, their uncle Jay, who never left the family home, would grab them, molest them basically. But it was never talked about, barely hinted at in fact, and his parents doted on him and protected him and would have totally rejected any suggestion that there was anything wrong with Uncle Jay.
When they are long gone, Jay is still living in the family home. It has since been willed on to the girls, and they allow him to continue living there. Where else would they put him?! But of course, he and the house deteriorate over time, and they become his caregivers, which is both strange and an often-repeated truth. This is not uncommon, in fact. I have almost first-hand experience of the same kind of ‘difficult’ situation. When perverted relatives become unable to live independently, and the family can’t seem to face turning them out into the wild. Better to keep it all quiet until they pass. As if that in and of itself would somehow change the past offences and there deep and unrelenting effects.
Once he dies, then the work begins. Clearing out the house, the grandparents’ and Uncle Jay’s belongings. For Barbara, it becomes more of an exploration of Jay’s warped mind. As she uncovers his secret life, she stumbles upon his porn collection, and determined to face the demons straight on, she begins to catalogue it until it becomes too revolting. As she looks deeper, she finds letters and cards from his former coworkers wishing he would die, calling him every name that she had always longed to. But as she says, because they both happened to belong to “the most dangerous entity in the world…the family,” silence was mandatory. This bad and twisted man controlled everyone and abused those he could get to. The shame of him was the secret no one wanted to be the first to expose. But as Barbara discovers for herself, there was no pain to overcome. Uncle Jay gave her no actual pain when he tried his best to corner her and to grab her. But there was infinite damage done. Permanent and unrelenting damage. To survive him and a family that would protect him but not her, made her into a girl and then a woman that was entirely different from what she would have been had he not existed. Or if his parents, who made him and indulged him and protected him has taken another path. How very different would everyone’s life have been then?
We are all dealt the hands we are given. Stories are made around us, because of us, in spite of us. Most families have, and Uncle Jay in one form or another and abuse is all too common, despicably so. In My Dead Uncles Porn Collection, Barbara Brady writes with exquisite clarity about her own life, her childhood, and her family. She captures the sadness and the futility, the regret and the sorrow, the brittle shell built around themselves to protect what adults would not. Admitting there was a problem might have made them take responsibility for it after all. And that would never do.
This is a terribly tough subject to write a solo show about. But Barbara has created something nuanced and perceptive, disturbing and yet necessary. It’s brilliantly written and brutally and honestly performed. Barbara has faced the ‘monster’ and turned her story into something she owns. Bravo.
You can find out more about Barbara and her show, My Dead Uncle’s Porn Collection, on her website.
And also more about the art of solo shows at Soaring Solo Studios.