Theater review: 'Unspeakably Yours, The Underarm Monologues': Kili-kili power(less)

I do not doubt that there is humor here, in fact I trust Upstart Productions to come up with material that works, monologues that will be funny. It goes without saying that our local theater actresses will take any material and run with it. And with comedy? Our timing is succinct. 

 

This might be why I even said yes to this pre-event press preview of sorts, with excerpts from a full play that had yet to be staged, which I do not do and especially not for theater. Free good food will distract you from doing your review; serve me alcohol, and I will think glorious things by default. I kid you. (Not.) 

 

But seriously? How far can we go with monologues about our body parts and imagine it—think it—powerful? 

 

Well, apparently, kili-kili powerful. That I’m serious is part of the absurdity.

 

I really should’ve braced myself the moment I realized that this play, dubbed as “Unspeakably Yours, The Underarm Monologues” (Cathy Azanza-Dy and Jenny Jamora), was being presented by a whitening deodorant. Ah, but such is my faith in the possibilities of theater and creativity. Such is my faith in culture. 

 

The business of whitening the morena Pinay? That just reminds me of how low culture has sunk, at the same time that its expectations of women have become more and more shallow. 

 

You don’t have a brain? Have some white armpits!  

 

I do not exaggerate. I’d smile were my mouth not full with free food. 

 

You know what we say about Pinoy culture being the pits? In this set of monologues, it is about the armpits. Our refusal to talk about it, our insistence on hiding it, and everything in between. 

 

Everything, that is, except the more obvious fact of dark armpits, half the time a product of our particular skin pigmentation—one that is not white just in case we’ve forgotten. I’d like to think this production’s refusal to begin with dark armpits is its insistence on working beyond the whitening deodorant. Because too, if you begin with dark armpits, how far can you go with that, without literally selling the superficiality of skin and the whitening industry? 

 

Which is not to say that “Unspeakably Yours” went to town with the armpits, so to speak. In fact if there’s anything I realized, it’s the fact that there is no going crazy with it, because there is only so much you can say. There is nothing romantic about the pits, nothing that relates it to love other than maybe a strange fetish. And too, there is this fact: the monologues as made famous by Eve Ensler, is borne of common experience, if not of the ability at empathy. The “Vagina Monologues,” as “Love Loss and What I Wore” by Nora and Delia Ephron, is premised on stories that might not be true for all of us, but which we can relate to, which we can empathize with, which tie us together in terms that are about oppression and suffering, freedom and liberation, beyond race and religion.

 

But the armpits? Just in case you’ve forgotten, men have those, too. And there is no oppression that comes with the armpit in particular, because seriously, you can just keep from wearing sleeveless tops, or stop showing your armpits for all the world to see. You know that it doesn’t matter. You know too that if it matters at all—at all —then it is that person who is judging you for it that’s at fault, because he is ultimately superficial.

 

And I don’t think we can even begin to assert the armpits as oppressive, as the vagina is, as clothes are, or breasts. To think the armpits oppressive is to think your elbow possibly oppressive. Or your singit. Or I don’t know, your alak-alakan. It is the most superficial of body parts, and is farthest from being important. Trust in the fact that the armpit will only be important to those who sell deodorants and make a business out of waxing. Otherwise, we let our armpits be, and that is a good thing.

 

And here is this production’s biggest problem. Its premise is an exasperated “Why do we not talk about our kili-kili?” The answer is another question: “Why are you talking about the kili-kili?” 

 

Ah, because it is the most normal thing now, yes? When we can have advertisements with the presidential sister—who is white to begin with—selling whitening and anti-skin-aging creams? When magazines will put the celebrity with fake nose, collagen lips, some botox to boot, and call her beautiful. Oh wait, when we can watch the morena artista on TV magically becoming whiter and whiter by the year, and hold up, she’s got a new nose, too! 

 

When the beauty industry has made normal women who are looking more and more like Michael Jackson at his worst, then really, monologues about our armpits can’t be so bad, yes? 

 

Not quite. Because to go this low, to have a full production of monologues just talking about the armpits of this nation, might be the worse thing to happen for local theater really, where the notions of superficiality and shallowness are reinforced, regardless of whether these monologues talk about the armpits as secondary to personality, or love and relationships. The fact is, a whole set of monologues on just this body part? Is just and ultimately that, and nothing else. There is no bigger truth, no deeper meaning. The kili-kili is the kili-kili is the kili-kili. 

 

At some point “Unspeakably Yours” takes from the “Cunt” monologue in “Vagina Monologues.” This is the powerful monologue, which ends with the actress calling on the audience to start chanting the word: “cunt! cunt! cunt!” It is a moment that is powerful and wonderful and is all about sisterhood and unity across all women, as we reclaim the words used on our body.

 

In “Unspeakably Yours” they call on the audience to chant with them: “armpit! armpit! armpit!”

 

Yes, a step forward for your armpits. 

 

Profit for the deodorant company. 

 

An infinite number of steps back for womankind. 

 

If we can zero in on our armpits, can the kuyukot be far behind?

 

(Please no.) –KG, GMA News

 

“Unspeakably Yours, The Underarm Monologues” is directed by Cathy Azanza-Dy and Jenny Jamora, written by Joel Trinidad with Azanza-Dy. 

 

Katrina Stuart Santiago writes the essay in its various permutations, from pop culture criticism to art reviews, scholarly papers to creative non-fiction, all always and necessarily bound by Third World Philippines, its tragedies and successes, even more so its silences. She blogs at http://www.radikalchick.com. The views expressed in this article are solely her own.