What’s the time, Mr Wolf? Oh – it’s that time. Time of the month. Lady time. Time for your little monthly visitor. Dr Carnesky eschews these euphemisms, preferring to explore the metaphor of the snake shedding its skin, to emerge renewed. The mythology of menstruation is her subject, and we are treated to a potted version of her PhD thesis, slide-show enhanced, which rattles us through musings on female icons Medusa, Hydra, and Kali, to confront the conundrum of the stainless Virgin Mary, taking us eventually to the notion of the crucified, bleeding Christ as a prime example of womb envy. Blood, death, resurrection. Move over, Jesus – it happens to us all the time. We learn along the way that make-up – rouge, red lipstick – can be traced back to the symbolic smearing of menstrual blood on the face, at which point Carnesky suddenly, as if by magic, has a bloodied face and hands. ‘Wearing make-up, we are all menstruants,’ she says.
And, bloody Nora – she’s not alone. Bleedin’ women, all over the shop. One (Fancy Chance) with a lipstick hidden in her fanny, conjured up to enact a ritualistic rouging of her body. One (MisSa Blue) a sword-swallower who injured herself a while back when performing whilst menstruating – the oesophagus swells in sympathy with the womb, it would seem. One (H Plewis) who performs a flowing dance with blobs of her own frozen menstrual jelly as a prop, reappearing later with the ultimate fertility symbol, her baby daughter Sula. One (Molly Beth Morossa) draws witchy circles of salt that she writhes within, whilst the screen behind her shows an image of a full moon. One (Rhyannon Styles) is seen on screen performing a rite of passage ritual on Southend beach, as her live self tells us that as a transwoman, she may not bleed monthly but she certainly experiences a cycle. One (Nao Nagai) who appears in a whole-body mask as a Yokai, a comedic phantom from Japanese folklore. Carnesky herself is seen on film bathing in blood as she tells us that she has experienced four miscarriages, and needed to find a way to work through the disappointment of the arrival of the blood that signified that the pregnancy was ending. Voila – the Menstruants! Or is it the Menstronauts? They seem to be both. Regardless, this group of women (which also includes Priya Mistry, who is not performing this evening) have met regularly at Dark Moon – the time of the birth of the new moon – over many moons to research the lore of menstruation, to enact ritual, and to create performance.
The resulting research is presented to us by Dr Carnesky, resplendent in a midnight blue gown with red-sequinned cape, who uses a form familiar from many of her previous shows, a performance-lecture that is both serious and tongue-in-cheek at one and the same time, interspersed with contemporary sideshow vignettes that both celebrate and subterfuge the popular theatre, circus and cabaret traditions of the show-woman making a spectacle of herself. ‘Do you believe in menstrual magic?’ she asks the audience. Yes, we shout – the loudest shout coming from a very young girl in the gallery.
The Doctor is on great form – her voice dips down into Thatcher-esque depths, then rises into girlish cheekiness. She moves from university lecturer mode to music hall entertainer with ease, addressing the audience directly: How many of us are on the rag tonight? Hands are raised. More than last night, Dr Carnesky observes with a twinkle in her eye – by the end of the run she predicts that the whole audience will be menstruating in synchronised harmony, and that includes the men.
Sometimes the performance mode moves into a poet’s declaiming rather than a professor’s explaining. The screen behind returns many times to the image of the moon, as we are reminded that observing its waxing and waning was the original means of calculating the passing of time.
The ‘lecture’, the live performance vignettes, and the still and moving images segue together seamlessly, for the most part – although some of the film work is not of the best quality. The music is a lovely mix, embracing fairground waltzes, sultry foxtrots, and Pierre Henry-sounding vintage electronica. All of the performance pieces are strong: I’m particularly blown away by Carnesky regular H Plewis – and let’s face it, you can’t beat a hair-hanging finale number (Veronica Thompson aka Fancy Chance on fine form).
It’s great to see this usually taboo subject bursting onstage in all its bloody glory, Dr Carnesky continuing in her ongoing quest to use sideshow, magic and popular entertainment forms to explore serious subjects. Here, not just menstruation and menstrual rights, but also female body shame, what it means to be ‘female’, issues around fertility, and the lost herstories of our matriarchal past. Yes, the revolution will be bloody – prepare to be cleansed and regenerated, shed your skin, and emerge born anew with the new moon.
