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B*tchcraft

Theatre Review by Michael Dale - February 13, 2025


Bitch
Photo by Eric McNatt
"This is the part of my story I really don't want to talk about," says rebelliously queer and creatively anti-patriarchal music artist Bitch about two-thirds into her funny, touching, and aggressively joyful autobiographical B*tchcraft: A Musical Play, now enjoying a crisp and exhilarating world-premiere mounting at wild project, where general admission tickets go for $35.

Up until that point, the (mostly) solo musical with a book co-authored by Bitch and director Margie Zohn, utilizing the performer's song catalogue (music and lyrics by Bitch, with contributions from other artists), has been a celebration of the rise of a shy, marginalized girl from Michigan finding her voice and, through her music, fashion and moxie, encouraging other shy marginalized people to do the same.

And if it had stayed that way, B*tchcraft would certainly be recommended as a lively and uplifting 80 minutes of theatre. But the part of her story the star doesn't really want to talk about involves the fall–a deep fall involving accusations of being on the wrong side of a human rights issue that has become increasingly more relevant in the past few weeks. And that makes B*tchcraft a musical play not only to be enjoyed, but to be discussed, debated and admired for the artist's bravery in standing center stage and defending her truth.

But we'll get back to that.

Projection designer Brian Pacelli sets the mood upon entering the theater, with the walls decorated in a colorful collage of 1980s spiral notebooks emblazoned with animal illustrations and slogans like "Girls Rule", calling to mind the adolescent-aimed commercial art of Lisa Frank.

Scenic and prop designer Samantha Tutasi has placed a mythical-looking music stand upstage, with a giant pencil hanging above. The play begins with a silent character designated as The Crone (Cary Curran) conjuring up "Li'l Bitch" (known in her youth as Karen Mould) from a sandbox.

"I was a quiet child," she sings while describing growing up with a father whose only use for her was an ability to pour a proper beer and a mother who burdened her with her own frustrations of not becoming a Broadway star. (Sound designer Sean Hagerty supplies voiceovers for these and other supporting characters.) Seems her only real friend growing up was a stuffed Beaver, played silently in enthusiastic life-sized form by Francesca.

Projections display Karen's playfully colorful childhood bedroom, but when the angst and anger of the awkward child take over, the walls explode with the animated black and white drawings of an artist needing to burst free.

Some of that freedom is expressed by taking classes in her mother's basement tap dance studio (choreography by Michelle Dorrance), but her real passion is set loose when she starts learning to play the violin.

As a college theatre major, she fulfills an academic requirement with Women's Studies 101 ("Your homework for this week is to watch every second of the Anita Hill hearing and try not to throw things at the screen.") and learns that much of her teenage awkwardness came from attempting to minimize her large presence to satisfy the male gaze. This is also where she meets "wild child New Yorker" Danny, "this tough-looking hot possibly a lesbian boy girl that I couldn't stop staring at for the whole class."

Soon Karen and Danny are a loud and boisterously pro-pussy music duo touring the country's queer-friendly venues and Pride celebrations in a tour bus named Camp TWAT (Tenacious Women And Transfolk) as Bitch and Animal, making up new names for the states they play along the way. ("Hello, MissesLicked Me! As you may or may not know, we were kicked out of South Carovagina last night!")

While Bitch displays engaging and endearing musical comedy storytelling chops during the show's initial scenes, her recreations of concert appearances demonstrate the frenzied display of ferocity that encouraged her fans to use self-empowerment and non-conformity as a weapon against those who would limit the space they occupy. ("This song goes out to all the inbetweenie-weenies out there!") Costume designer Andrea Lauer has Bitch's wardrobe evolve from an ill-fitting display of 1980s pop-femininity to sleek and stylish war gear.

Bitch pounds the floor into submission with forcefully executed time steps, attacks the strings of her electric violin and fingers the ivories of her strap-on keytar while performing anthem rock selections like "Pussy Manifesto," a call and response number that sucks the negative connotation out of the word, and "You're the Man," a condemnation of patriarchal corporate warmongering.

Though Bitch and Animal are used to dealing with the indignities they encounter in straight society, they're enraged by the sexism they're made to endure while performing in Provincetown and male-run Pride events, so an invitation to perform at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, a week-long event that was held annually for 40 years, is an exciting opportunity.

"Started in the 1970s as part of a separatist movement of radical lesbians, wanting to make their own space and celebrate their own culture," explains Bitch. But even as she and Animal are introduced onstage as having "a specific voice that is challenging us to be more wild, more gender expansive, and more authentically ourselves," there are protesters from Camp Trans denouncing the festival for practicing exclusion and labeling any act that plays there as TERFs.

While one voice insists, "Bitch, you need to stand up for the marginalized. You need to say from the festival main stage that you denounce the policy of excluding trans women," another explains, "This festival is the one place all year where I don't have to see or even think about a penis," and asks, "Why do they want to take that away from me?"

"I am trans," shouts Animal, and Bitch cites the pro-trans songs they've been performing, but more and more protesters start showing up at their performances and when an incomplete quote given by Bitch is interpreted as proving that she regards trans women as being men and goes viral, gigs start getting cancelled and her music career completely stops.

As a cis male, I recognize that there are people far more qualified than me to write about this issue, but as a theatre critic who took on an assignment to review a show, I'll opine that Bitch sympathetically expresses her empathy for trans people while wanting to honor her elders who fought the earlier battles.

So, B*tchcraft might be regarded as both an attempt to resurrect the career of a defiant voice shouting for the underrepresented as well as a plea for the mutually marginalized to regard nuances within certain issues before they're resolved by a circular firing squad.


B*tchcraft: A Musical Play
Through March 1, 2025
wild project
195 E 3rd Street
Tickets online and current performance schedule: thewildproject.org