Zoë Geltman has an eye for tiny things. Little hairs on a face. Shivers on the back of your neck. A very intense water bottle, the kind with a straw, maybe with fruit in it. The feeling of clothing touching your skin. The question of whether or not to wear a jumpsuit. A held-breath space. And in this space, through these tiny things, the creeping questions, the prickly judgement that inevitably invades as women are sitting around, deciding whether or not to spawn, deciding who and how they should be.
In Zoë’s cathartically oozy and tickly new play A(U)NTS!, opening at the Brick Theater May 8th and running through May 24th, three women in their thirties, Sherylann, Renee, and Annie, sit around and question. They also hold each other’s heads, go on dates, eat Pop chips, eat their own puke, and do other normal things women do.
RENEE
Yeah, so anyway.
Oh my god what was I talking about.
SHERYLANN
Your adorable baby nephew.
RENEE
Right, but.
ANNIE
How he’s a fucking annoying asshole.
Sherylann, Renee, and Annie are a deeply relatable group; friends brought together by their jobs at the dental offices of Lipman, Lipman & Lipman, not necessarily by perfectly-matched ideologies. Zoë gives the three women enough in common to feel a genuine bond, and enough friction to create familiar, hair-raising tension. The women’s differences are impactfully subtle: for example, Sherylann’s distance from Annie and Renee is demonstrated by their bewilderment at the many cases she carries; “glasses cases and Advil cases and pen cases.” If you’ve experienced feminine friendship, you’ll recognize the weight of this description—it’s the type of micro-drama that’s rarely depicted on stage, but is so appropriate for a play that deals with quiet lives, regular women, and…insects. A(U)NTS! is carried lovingly by these characters’ true care for one another (their tender nicknames like Rennie and Annie-Banannie say it all), and driven by its hairline cracks. As the play goes on, the cracks deepen, and the ants crawl in.
We hear the sounds of sucking and oozing and wings flapping.
Fractures between and within Sherylann, Annie, and Renee also make shadowy space for the play’s sensitive commentary on the maze that is modern feminism. In lives and bodies where every choice is a choice, the women can’t help but judge each other, then judge themselves for judging each other. Renee thinks Sherylann is judging her because of her will to stay single (really just an intolerance for boring men). Sherylann thinks Renee is judging her because she doesn’t have an “artistic practice” or go to parties at “deep Queens mystery addresses.” The two butt heads (and “butt butts,” as Sherylann later puts it) over a song lyric — “And I know no one will save me / I just need someone to kiss”— which kicks open a central, agonizing question in the play: is it okay to need other people? Sherylann thinks so. Or is it cowardly? Rennee thinks so. Regressive, or radical? Necessary, or needy? The play doesn’t answer these questions outright, but offers an absurd new reality where Hare-Krishna-but-not-Hare-Krishna chanting or a shatteringly intimate encounter can lead to the absolute abandon of eating your own puke, and sharing it with a friend (ants actually think this is fun).
When I asked Zoë about the genesis of A(U)NTS!, she told me that the play was, for her, “a way of imagining this other mode of being, a way of imagining a future that is different from the one I’ve been told I should have.” With her uncanny ability to capture highly-specific instances and deeply darkly kept-secret feelings, along with her bravery to really go there with descriptions of the body and all of its innate gore, Zoë imagines a world where women can be disgustingly free. Having been driven my entire life by some intrinsic urge to be “put together,” it was so immensely satisfying to witness these women coming undone.
She does a little dance that is uninhibited.
A(U)NTS!, being of the world of ants, also explores the idea of work, specifically the kind that is tiny and invisible. (It feels important to note that without Winnow ants in North America, there would be fifty percent fewer wildflowers.) Sherylann, Annie, and Renee’s work at the dentist office is literally invisible—we never actually see what exactly they do at Lipman, Lipman, & Lipman, or meet a Lipman, for that matter. There are X-Rays, sure? Lead aprons, definitely. White doctors coats, absolutely. The work is not centered, but creeps in from around the edges. While none seem ardently passionate about their jobs, Sherylann, Renee, and Annie are split in their ideas of what “work” itself means. Renee sees herself as an artist, and says she’s not “doing [the dental job] like, for real.” Annie describes satisfaction in “handing Dr. Lipman the right instrument right before he knows he’s gonna need it.” (We can imagine Dr. Lipman assuming that the tool never left his hand). Sherylann might actually…be really good at her job.
Then, there’s the other work, the hardest work of all, the most difficult job in the world, which so few of us are cut out for, but still do, somehow…the work that is childcare. As three, single, childless women, Sherylann, Renee, and Annie are doomed (blessed?) to be babysitters. Sherylann thinks kids are “The Best,” while Renee is driven to existential crisis by her nephew, and Annie flat out refuses to babysit until her niece is old enough to “have a civilized chat over a sauv blanc.” The question of motherhood lurks throughout the play, not dominating it, not discussed at great length, but as so many of us experience, always there.
ANNIE-AS-ANT
BUT WHAT IF I ALSO DON’T WANT TO BE QUIET SAD LADY? PREDIGESTING MY SPAWN’S BREAKFAST? HUH? HUH? HMMMMM????
In some ways, A(U)NTS! is remarkably subtle and intellectual. In others, it’s totally slapstick and maximalist. The combination of these forces is where the life of the plays lies, and is so Zoë. Somehow, she captures thorny, painfully conflicting ideas about “empowerment” with simple questions like: “what is wrong with ordering a salad?” The sickening, gut-turning guilt of child-rearing is tied up casually in the question: “do you play? Do you play?” We’re so invested in the vividly painted details of the women’s lives and habits that we almost don’t notice that they’re also asking questions like “What happened directly after that moment of being at one with the world?” or “Who are we to make up answers to the universe?” It’s not that these questions go over our heads, it’s that they get absorbed into the experience of the play, so they’re not asked, or said—they’re felt. If you have the privilege of knowing Zoë, and knowing her writing, you’ll feel her voice—sharp intelligence, easy delivery—in every moment. And if you know Zoë, I don’t have to tell you that the play is funny.
RENEE
Like she was so clearly extremely smart and yet she didn’t need to flaunt that. Or parade it around. Ya know? It made me think about myself, actually, and my relationship to… like. Intelligence?
Not too long ago, before A(U)NTS! entered my life, Zoë and I were curled up on a cushion, eating snacks and having the conversation. You know the one. The one that is the one, once you get to a certain age.
“I hated babysitting, does that mean I shouldn’t be a mom?” “I loved taking my nephew to the aquarium, does that mean I should be a mom?” “What about when they put their little hand on your chest?” “What about when they’re screaming, or when they turn on you?” We went back and forth, trading stories, and quotes from Sheila Heti’s Motherhood. We went deep, we went in circles. Zoë, at some point, got up to go get a coffee, and so, fearing the end of the conversation, I begged her—wait—can you just tell me what I should do?
A(U)NTS! didn’t tell me whether or not I should have kids. It didn’t tell me exactly what I’ll become. It didn’t tell me which version of womanhood is “right.” None of us can make each other’s decisions, but we can hold each other through them—and through all of the inevitable, sometimes gory, transmogrifications of mind, body, and soul that come with the territory.
ANNIE
Like all the cells in my body had been replaced with other cells. All at once. Ya know? And like, I kind of felt, this sort of purpose. I know that’s whatever, but that’s the only word I can think of. But I was scared too, and I remember kind of shivering. Or like, the thing that was coming over me WAS a shiver? If that makes sense?
But it also felt good, ya know? Because I was just like, who the fuck cares about this fucking DUDE. I’m this amazing creature! I am!
A(U)NTS! is directed by Julia Sirna-Frest, who Zoë tells me, GETS IT. Zoë herself is in it as Sherylann, playing alongside Megan Hill (Renee) and Jehan O. Young (Annie), two other incredibly talented performers. Go see it, then please, tell yourself, over and over again in the mirror: I am an amazing creature.
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