Ursula Martinez is described on her website as a "writer,
performer and cult cabaret diva"; she was an original cast member
of La Clique and an associate artist with DIVA favourite
Duckie.
A major turning point in her career was when a video of her
infamous strip tease cum magic trick act, Hanky Panky went
inadvertently viral on the internet and she was suddenly inundated
with emails from fans, admirers and all those in between. My
Stories, Your Emails recounts the upshot of this new found internet
fame and juxtaposes intimate stories from Ursula's life with the
emails she received from male fans after the video was
released.
As the lights went down in the Soho Theatre, Ursula bounded onto
the stage and was instantly recognisable (of course I had done my
research like a good theatre critic and watched the aforementioned
Hanky Panky a few times already) as she was wearing the same outfit
that she wears in the video, a grey skirt suit with the red hanky
cheekily poking out of the top breast pocket. This was an exciting
prospect for all the audience members who were secretly hoping she
would re-enact the piece where she gets completely naked and
somehow defies logic by making handkerchiefs disappear out of thin
air. Her hair is scraped back with a white streak glistening
through the front of it, which is quite a nice indicator of the
passage of time since she first performed the original.
She interrogated the audience on why we were here. One guy shouts
out "we are here for one night more only in London and we wanted
nice memory of London!" but apart from that everyone else stayed
silent. She reasoned that undoubtedly some people would be at the
performance for "pervy reasons" (her words) or "'to see a bit of
minge" (her words again). I was pretty sure my intentions were pure
but couldn't entirely vouch for my friend who seemed much keener to
accompany me after she had seen Hanky Panky, ahem.
The first half of the show begins with My Stories. These were like
abstract tit bits out of some kind of surreal Ursula Martinez
autobiography and were very intimate, humourous and at times dark,
covering her grandfather's adultery, sibling rivalry and frying
menstrual blood. It was hard to know when to laugh at points, as
the tone swung back and forth from hilarious anecdotes to serious
comment on racism and discrimination.
The second section moves onto Your Emails where Ursula reads out a
selection of correspondence she has received from men after they
had seen Hanky Panky. She flashes up pictures they have sent her
and puts on accents for them (according to where they say they are
from, and this ranges from Africa to Sweden). One man proudly sends
her a picture of his flaccid and then erect penis, suggesting she
think of them as before and after (he has watched her video) at
this point an audience member sounds like she is crying and the
look of disgust on Ursula's face made me feel a little
uncomfortable.
On leaving the theatre I overheard another audience member exclaim
to her friend "..well this is stand-up, not therapy", and I feel
this piece is a lesson about making assumptions like these and
bringing your own preconceptions to a performance and then almost
feeling a disappointment when these expectations are not met by the
reality. The male correspondents in Ursula's piece imbued a
personality and sexuality onto Ursula after seeing her video that
probably are just fantasy and Ursula smashes this image that was
created by the internet with her stories of eating cat poo and her
longing for intimacy with others, not "sexy, fun internet times",
which is what one of these men thought she wanted.
Anyone who comes to this performance expecting straight stand-up
will be left wanting, as although there are laughs, many come with
a bitter undercurrent of social criticism and sometimes that comes
without any laughs at all.
As email after email was read out, it made uncomfortable listening
as these men were offered up on a plate for us to chortle at, but I
cannot help but think that Ursula's aim was not purely to amuse us
as many of her Stories were not only obviously not funny but
unsettling. This feeling was mirrored in Your Emails and made me
reflect on why these men would think it's OK to respond in such a
way to a stranger doing a strip tease on the internet and how this
is linked to society's ills at large.
Catch this thought provoking and conceptual performance piece at
The Soho Theatre for the next two weeks.
For information about venue and show times visit sohotheatre.com
