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Dixie Chick
Kelli Porterfield
channels Southern ladies for comic gold in “Mirror Mirror”
By
Bethany Trottier / Jester Correspondent
Kelli Porterfield’s one-woman
show “Mirror Mirror,” seen this month at the People’s Improv Theater
in New York, is a fantastical reflection of insecurity in women in
the American South. Porterfield herself is a fearless performer,
running around in a skin-tight leopard print cat suit and mullet wig
or hip-hop dancing as though her life depended on it.
These characteristics channel
the audience seamlessly into the inner worlds of her roster of
over-the-top characters, or rather, caricatures. Whatever is going
on below the Mason-Dixon Line appears to be even more disturbing
than what my imagination can conjure. These personalities all have
one common life goal — the eventual triumph of surface over
substance. The successful surface manipulation is the prize that
will turn these women into winners. They believe that they can
overcome life’s adversities through image alone. Hell, for these
women, one of life’s adversities IS image.
Porterfield’s most
over-the-top character has to be the mulleted, pudgy, lycra-clad
(with lots of cleavage of course!) Staceee — that’s right, with
three Es. She is a wanna-be hardcore fitness instructor with a
fondness for espousing inspirational life philosophies such as
“losing is for losers — that’s why it’s called losing!” The short
film of Staceee’s quest to Eastern Asia in order to become
enlightened is a hysterical MUST SEE.
Porterfield’s show is
structured as a series of vignettes, narrated by one of her Southern
lady characters, such as the dimwitted tanning salon gal who answers
a suicide prevention hotline while taking tanning apartments, a
cosmetic saleswoman who channels both Mary Kay and Billy Graham. And
of course, the breezy, elegant owner of the local old folks home who
gives relatives permission to unload their “ugly and smelly” elderly
and forget all about them — for the right price, of course!
The stories within the show
all tie together, giving consistency and completeness. “Mirror
Mirror” is a very funny show – one of the best I’ve seen this year.
Go see Kelli Porterfield in this or in anything — you will
absolutely laugh your ass off.
Los Angelenos will be able to
see Porterfield in “Mirror Mirror” next month Jan. 3, 17 and 31 at
the ImprovOlympic West in Hollywood.
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© 2005-2018 Michael Shashoua