Vanessa in Bed by Diana Grisanti (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Vanessa in Bedby Diana Grisanti
• Gina M. Di Salvo

VANESSA IN BED. By Diana Grisanti. Directed by Pirronne Yousefzadeh. Audible Theater. Digital audio production released 09 23, 2023. Downloaded 02 10, 2024.

Finally, a comedy about dead mothers, millennial flailing, and the legacy of colonial wealth that spans from an abortion clinic along the Ohio River to a bed-rest study in a Texas swamp. Diana Grisanti's new audio play, Vanessa in Bed, centers on the existential and physical stasis of Vanessa, a 37-year-old who recently lost her mother, terminated an unwanted pregnancy, and had a falling out with her cousin Brigid. The titular bed in which Vanessa lays is not the one she shared with the neurotic trustfund hobby pilot who impregnated her during a fling. Vanessa has committed to stay in bed alone for ninety-one days with her head at a sixdegree decline. She expects to incur digestive issues and muscle atrophy. Vanessa's trial of endurance is not for penance but rather for a bedrest study that simulates the effects of antigravity on the body. The space exploration division of Paralax, a commercial enterprise founded by a descendant of Dutch colonizers, aims to launch commercial travel to Mars once the earth has been fracked to bits. This is no science fiction play. It is a financial reality play. Vanessa is giving her body to Paralax to earn $80,000 to fund Brigid's divorce. If she can be a hero, she can win back her cousin. But Vanessa only makes it to Day 49. Her failure is as spectacular as the fall she experiences when she gets out of bed in a fit of anti-neoliberal self-righteousness, breaking her contract. Wheelchairbound with a herniated disc and staph infection on her face, Vanessa is ultimately saved by Brigid.

Vanessa in Bedswitches back and forth between the bedrest study and Vanessa's recent past. At home, Vanessa's life is filled with a chorus of women: seven paternal aunts, Grandma Jane, and Brigid and Mary Beth, two of her twenty-seven cousins. Brigid is a stayathome mom and an volunteer escort at an abortion clinic, and Mary Beth is a nun. The cousins grew up together in the What Happened to Aunt Colette Club. Aunt Colette, the missing eighth paternal aunt, disappeared when she was 17 and pregnant. The cousins' investigation centered on scouring the contents of The New Woman's Survival Catalogfor the addresses of communes and collectives that Aunt Colette might have joined. Grisanti stretches the mystery of Aunt Colette through the play. Although it is never solved, the biggest clue—that book of secondwave feminist resources—provides salvation for the cousins.

The impact of Aunt Colette's absence is a site of intergenerational trauma and reverberates in Mary Beth's vocation as a nun and Brigid's dedication to reproductive choice. At the end of the play, when Brigid and Vanessa admire Mary Beth for "getting out," they do not mean from their hometown in southern Ohio. Rather, as they drive away from a past determined by capitalism and disappointing masculinity, Vanessa and Brigid head toward a future of communal interdependence, albeit one devoid of Mary Beth's religious vows. For both Vanessa and Brigid, the worst has already happened: they have lost their mothers. The next worse thing is for them to lose each other while alive.

As a bornaudio new play, the dramaturgy of Vanessa in Bedfully embraces its medium as both an audio recording and theatre. In past experiences with audio drama, I have had difficulty following the story when characters are only voiced rather than both embodied and voiced. With Vanessa in Bed, I occasionally craved to see the action onstage, especially the physical challenge of actors at a sixdegree decline or the hilarious inappropriateness of two study subjects attempting to hook up through their hospital beds. I definitely yearned for fellow audience members to experience this play with me. The medium of the asynchronous audio play enables access to new work without dependence on geographical situation, synchronic time availability, or bodily ability. At the same time, the past few years...