With “I Will Eat You Alive,” Katie Hileman, the director, playwright, and intimacy director, presents the story of three fat women’s journey to lose weight, the social pressure they have felt since they were children, and the horrible things people believe to have agency to say to fat people online simply for existing. 

I saw “I Will Eat You Alive” at the Voxel in Charles Village on the opening night of January 26. I am always interested in shows and media that center on fat individuals because they rarely exist without making fat people the subject of ridicule or shame. This play takes those tropes and plays with them in an off-kilter way. On opening night, I watched people around me be moved to tears as they related to what was happening in the play. 

The unique set design added a level of intimacy and audience interaction, allowing myself and the rest of the audience to be folded into the story. The set was two rows of tiered seating to the left and right of a long white table. The three main characters and 11 willing audience members were seated as “dinner guests.” A feeling of heaviness and discomfort hung over the set as ‘dining’ with the main characters made the characters’ shame, pain, and discomfort, shown through tight smiles and overly preppy voices, palpable. 

Written in what could be described as a love letter to herself, Hileman’s “I Will Eat You Alive” is more than fiction; it is a stylized reality that many fat people may find painfully resonant.

Hileman’s role as an intimacy director is particularly significant in this instance because she skillfully facilitates a space in which actors understand what is expected of them in hyper-exposed scenes and ensures there is informed consent. 

“It’s always my intention to make my actors feel like they have a lot of power, even though they’re putting themselves in these really vulnerable spots and saying some horrible things at times in the play,” Hileman told me. 

The day after the opening, I spoke with Hileman and the cast, Vicky Graham, Betse Lyons, and Meghan Taylor, who respectively played Fat Woman 1, 2, and 3. We spoke about our favorite fat characters growing up and how there were not too many of them, our least favorite style options as fat kids in the ’90s and early 2000s, and what it means to be a fat person in this day and age.

Although IWEYA’s run at the Voxel has ended, you can stream it. 

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Individually, what does it mean to be a fat person to each of you? 

Vicky Graham: It just means that I’m fat. I have weight on me, and I got curves with no speed limits. I think when I was younger, it was just strictly derogatory, something that I would avoid saying at all costs or try to defend myself by using, like, chubby or thick. But I think just the word itself is so short, it’s so simple, and it can just be used for what it is and not have any negative connotations behind it. And that’s something that this show has really helped me learn and embrace so that I have less stress and shame. I just can exist. And this is the adjective that best describes my body.

Betse Lyon: I guess it’s still pretty complicated for me. It’s a lot better than it used to be. I dealt with the terrible ’90s stuff as a teenager. And so I do use fat, simply and sometimes proudly. But there are still little knives in the back of my brain, stabbing me every time I do it. 

It’s just a cycle sometimes. It is still hard for me to use the word. But now, at least, it’s more likely that I’ll get frustrated, annoyed, or angry when people are saying bad things about fat folks instead of just retreating into myself, which I feel like getting frustrated and angry is a lot healthier.

Meghan Taylor: I feel like that question’s answer depends on the day. And some days, I don’t know. Being fat means literally nothing to me. It doesn’t define me. It’s just my body. It’s just this vessel that I have to move around in on this planet. But it’s not really indicative of who I am or what I can do or how much I’m worth. But if I’m having a shitty day, then I might be more aware of it. And then it means that being a fat person is like a burden you’re carrying around, and just extra weight, for lack of better terms. 

Lately, I’ve been more in a space where I’m like, it really doesn’t mean shit. My body is not me. I mean, my body is me, but my body is not indicative of my worth, what I have to contribute or what I can do, or anything else.

The show does a great job layering general attitudes and acceptances of fatphobia throughout the show through pop culture references, from Kate Moss’ infamous “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels” line to the cultural phenomena that was Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers, in a tongue-in-cheek kind of way. What stood out to me was the litany of increasingly violent tweets and messages to fat people that were projected onto the table. Did those come up during the interview that led to this show, or were those aimed at any of you?

Hileman: When I see something really fatphobic on social media, I will take a screenshot of it. It’s shocking to me that people feel such permission to say such horrible things. People don’t think twice about what is said to fat people online. People don’t think that this stuff is actually said about fat people, but it is, and all the time and very casually, and it’s everywhere. So when I had an opportunity to present it back and show people, I took it. I like the dichotomy of them [the characters] saying this stuff and laughing and sort of eating it.” 

Lyons: I think about the people, like fat women probably, who are on the receiving end of those actual comments. I have a small amount of popularity on TikTok, and so I have trolls. The shit that people think they can say to you is stunning. As a fat woman in today’s world, I learn to let most of it slide off my back. 

It’s awful to include them [the projected messages] because they’re terrible, but it’s also nice because it’s cathartic. Everyone in that room is recognizing how awful they are. And some of the people in that room have never thought about that before. 

There is a deeply intimate and personal scene towards the end of the show where the characters strip and essentially lay it bare to the audience. What did that scene mean to you, and how was it having an audience so close during that moment?

Hileman: The audience did exactly what I always intended for that moment to be. 

That moment felt so perfect because I don’t think it is a moment about them [the actresses] sexualizing themselves. Although if they want to and they go for it, I love that. I think that’s great. 

[It’s about] fat people sexualizing themselves on their own terms. It’s about that freedom. They’ve been so restrained the whole time. By the time they take their clothes off, there’s nothing but them. And we finally get to see them exactly as they are. And so that’s why I love the clothes off moment. 

I think that is so visceral, and everyone, by the end of the play, is just so hungry for it. And the fact that they are right there in your face, fully presenting themselves as they are and telling them that they are going to eat you alive.

It’s always my intention to make my actors feel like they have a lot of power, even though they’re putting themselves in these really vulnerable spots and saying some horrible things at times in the play. 

Honestly, there’s a lot of trauma in the play, and that’s an understatement that speaks to fat folks’ relationships with their bodies. But I always want my actors to feel like they’re throwing it back in the people’s faces. They are not there to be laughed at or to be ridiculed. They’re there to tell them exactly who they are, which we don’t get to see fat people do.

This is one 75-minute play on this topic, but what do you hope that people take away from the show? 

Hileman: I want people to think about how this happens to fat people in their lives, right? This isn’t just a story about these three fat women. I don’t want to assume that it happens to everybody, but I think there are some pretty universal experiences in the play, and I want people to think about how they treat fat people. 

It’s not necessarily your fault that you are complicit in it. All the bad things, white supremacy, and patriarchy. This is just like another arm of that — anti-fatness.

The post I Will Eat You Alive: An Ode To Being Fat appeared first on Baltimore Beat.

When Tatiana Nya Ford wrote “Lyra and the Ferocious Beast,” which ran at The Voxel Theater this summer, it was a way of blending several different parts of herself. 

The play starred actor, teacher, and spoken word superstar Mecca “Meccamorphosis” Verdell as Lyra, an intergalactic scientist who does whatever she can to keep her beloved pet Yucca (the “ferocious beast”) safe. Along the way, she must also grapple with the series of decisions that got her into this predicament in the first place.

Ford, a licensed therapist, weaves lessons about whimsy, redemption, and grief into this story. The tale doesn’t wrap up neatly, but instead concludes the way things end in real life: sometimes you move forward, acknowledge what was lost, and learn from it what you can. Ford’s training as a therapist and her talent as a playwright resulted in a play where characters embodied the full spectrum of human emotions, including more challenging ones — like grief — with authenticity. 

“Lyra” is Ford’s first produced full-length play. It was directed by Tessara Morgan, and features Caitlin Weaver as Lyra’s trusted robot companion Hattie, along with puppeteers Francesco Leandri and Alex Mungo, Isaiah Mason Harvey, David Brasington, and J. Purnell Hargroves. 

On September 24, Ford and I spoke about the experience of bringing the play into reality and her feelings about the show. 

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S. Ireti: How do you feel in those moments, when you see somebody become this thing that you’ve written? How does that writing process differ from actually seeing it? 

Tatiana Ford: Huge shout out to all the actors and also Tessa, the director. It feels amazing. It is one of my favorite things. It really feels like, not to be dramatic, but a motivation for the moments when living is hard and … existing becomes exhausting and we question our motivations. 

It’s always nice because I’ve been writing since I was a kid. And so to think of the little me who was unable to finish stories because I was so excited about writing the next one now being able to witness a fully written piece that is fully worked on by so many different people and given all this love and affection, it is so… I feel so lucky and it’s nice to be reminded of that.

To write is to share parts of yourself that you have spent so long trying to understand and accept and present to the world. What other parts of you do you try to carry or imbue in the things that you’re working on now or in the past?

Ford: So I believe my first time writing stories, I must have been nine or ten. And they weren’t plays, they were little novels, because I would be reading kids books, fantasy books. And it always spoke to me to have my own fantasy telling of either some kid who was like me or some kid who was not like me and just imagining what that was like. 

I think my first story that I wrote was about this group of friends who discover they have powers and they’re trying to not only save the world… but also trying to save their loved ones, save themselves, find some comfort.

I think more than anything as I write, I try to be as vulnerable as possible. I try to be very particular about the words I choose not only in my art but also on a daily basis. And I really just say that to speak on the… power I think that words have. 

The accidental poetry of language is beautiful. And in my storytelling, I want to touch upon all of the beauties and horrors and delights and surprises and everything that comes from life that I’ve known it as I’ve known it, as I’ve lived it, as I’ve seen it.

Do you dabble in other mediums? What does it mean to you to be an artist?

Ford: I tell people, I’m an artist because I am. And sometimes my medium is oil paints on a canvas, and sometimes my medium is my piano. Sometimes my medium is my body. Sometimes my medium is all kinds of stuff. I like sculpting. As I mentioned, I do a lot with puppets. I have so many puppets just all around my home. I love dancing. I love singing. Every way that I can express myself creatively is my favorite. 

Not to blow up your spot, but as a therapist, what perspective does that bring to your work, creating, etc.?

Ford: I think when we are constantly preaching the importance of mental health and social health and interpersonal health, intrapersonal health, all these kinds of stuff, it’s hard to not touch upon it in what we create — at least that’s the case for me.

We know that there are ways that we can be better, and that does give us comfort, and it doesn’t always give us comfort because we don’t always have it. But I think with writing the way that I do, touching upon the realness of what it is to experience life, I don’t know, it makes it all a little easier.

That’s very much why I got into expressive arts therapy. It’s because verbal communication is our main form of communication as humans in today’s world. But it is not the only way to communicate. 

I know that a lot of people, specifically our clients and really any client in therapy, can have trouble talking about a thing, hearing them admit a thing, saying a thing to this stranger who they might have known for a day or two sessions before this, or whatever the case is. And with art, it’s easier to touch upon the same topics, the same learning blocks, without needing to have the specificity of what is going on in order for that to be achieved. 

Even if I, as a therapist, might not be able to understand this painting we did together and this art activity, you, as a client, might have a deeper understanding because you see something in there that maybe you can’t verbally say to me right now, but are still able to connect to and feel and whatever else.

The post Accidental poetry appeared first on Baltimore Beat.