Daring one-woman play about Frida Kahlo
Kansas City stage star Vanessa Severo has demonstrated she’s got the guts and the energy to perform multiple characters in the world premiere production of her one-woman play, Frida … A Self Portrait. Drawing on her multifaceted virtuosity, Severo elegantly brings to life the flesh-and-blood Latina artist, polio survivor and wife, Frida Kahlo. The one-act, multi-chapter play opens April 19 and runs in repertory through May 19 at Copaken Stage, Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s downtown venue.
“This was someone trying to live her life as authentically as possible,” Severo says. “I hope I’m doing her proud.”
The nimble actress-dancer-choreographer-director-playwright put to use her artistic fluency and imagination. Mexican artist, Diego Rivera is one of multiple roles Severo plays in Frida. She choreographed movement pieces set to music for circumstances she found difficult to put into words. There’s a “dream ballet” Severo designed as a mechanism to show the tremendous discomfort of the corsets Frida wore daily – resulting from serious long-lasting injuries she suffered in a streetcar accident at age 18 and many subsequent spinal surgeries.
“There are parts that are breathtaking and some honest and ugly and truthful,” Severo says of the choreographic sketch. “It’s a part of Frida’s life that was very painful that she didn’t want to tell people about.”
Frida … A Self Portrait is a lifelike, authentic, more powerful version of the play she created and performed in 2014 at Living Room Theatre.
“It’s a completely different story,” she says. “Now, you’re going to get a really fleshed-out, living, breathing Frida.”
While revising the play, which she’d based on what she’d read about Kahlo, Severo visited the artist’s home in Mexico. The decision to use movement to convey dramatic moments took her to Canada where she studied the Tadashi Suzuki method of acting with the world-famous Japanese stage director. That experience gave Severo the know-how and confidence to add intense movement to Frida to great effect.
“The run-throughs have been exhilarating,” she says. “I’m finding that the movement happens to be the most effective part of the play.”
The 75-minute play, which covers Kahlo’s life from age six to 46, is divided into chapters, each showing a different period in the artist’s life. When Severo portrays other characters, she uses gestures to signal a role change, alters her voice and changes costume on-stage.
The custom-made creations designed by Katherine Davis, a University of Missouri-Kansas City graduate student are pitch-perfect to Severo. She was moved to tears the first time she tried on a costume.
“I didn’t have words, it was so beautiful,” Severo says. “Katherine did a phenomenal job; she put her heart and soul in it.”
A short-term gig in 2013 turned Severo onto Kahlo for whom she has a natural affinity. She posed as the celebrated artist during the 2013 exhibit of her work at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Severo was taken aback by visitor reaction.
“There was a reverence about it, almost religious,” she says. “I realized that this person was more than an icon, and I started finding out more about her.”
Theatregoers have seen Severo’s work at the KC Rep and several other playhouses. In June, she’ll open in The Revolutionist at The Unicorn.
Severo has high hopes for Frida, including a 10-day run at the KC Rep around the Day of the Dead and stagings at theatres in other cities.
She says, “I hope that (audiences) find some connective tissue with this woman that connects to their own lives, that makes them feel seen, understood and validated.”
