BY: Nina Slowinski ’19
Rigel Harris in The Edge of Our Bodies. Photo: Dorothea Trufelman ’16
The opening psyches the audience out. When Bernadette (Rigel Harris ’16) enters, it seems like she’s just returning home from a long trip. Standing with her back to the audience, Bernadette takes in the set: an ornamental living room that feels only a tad outdated for 2016. The audience soon learns that Bernadette is not returning home—she’s in the process of leaving.
It should be well noted that The Edge of Our Bodies is not Rigel Harris’s senior project. She already fulfilled this requirement last semester with her performance as Lady Macbeth last Fall on the JKB Mainstage. Instead, Harris’s choice to produce this one-woman show simply arises from her love and pure interest regarding the story of 16-year-old Bernadette. An actor could easily get lost in Bernadette’s life, which is overridden with disorientation, pandemonium and pensive simile. Yet, Harris delivers a poised, delicate, and quietly humorous performance that keeps the authenticity of chaos present and potent, while also making it relatable.
I am one of seven lucky people to have seen an early run through of the show a couple weeks ago. Jumping from then to opening night, Harris and director Hannah Baker ‘16 have continued to polish the piece, further refining each moment and relationship in the show. Somehow, Harris and Baker have managed to make The Edge of Our Bodies both an intimate and a universal piece.
After the opening night, which ended with a standing ovation, Harris sat down to talk about her experience with the show.
What made you want to put on The Edge of Our Bodies?
I found the play when I was studying abroad in London and just really fell in love with it. There are a lot of different parts that hit close to home, and I was interested in the idea of a one-woman show. I wanted to play with the endurance necessary for such a durational piece.
How do you feel after your first time performing this show, in comparison to what you felt after when you saw it performed in London?
The actress who I saw play Bernadette was very stoic throughout. I thought what she was doing was absolutely gorgeous, but after playing with the text, I found myself being more interested in performing an emotional arc.
What’s it like performing with only yourself on stage?
Right before I’m about to go on stage, I think the whole thing feels rather intimidating—it’s a long show. Once I’m on stage, everything feels rooted and grounded. I don’t have anyone else to keep up with or match in terms of dialogue, energy, or pace. I consistently set that for myself. I can slow myself down or pick up energy or change things each time, and that’s a different game when someone else is on stage with you. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable in being alone than I thought I would be.
How do you feel playing a coming-of-age story at this stage of your life?
Having it be a coming-of-age piece is really interesting for me, especially since I’m about to graduate and go off into another section of my life. I get to look back at being sixteen from an older perspective.
How do you identify with Bernadette?
Bernadette is so tuned-in to other people. She’s interested in the way that people behave and interact with one another, and that’s something that I also pay a lot of attention to. I‘m personally really interested in how we perceive others and how others perceive us. Bernadette calls it lying, which it may be. But it’s also acting.
What do you want the audience to leave thinking about?
I think Bernadette ultimately ends up losing a sense of control over what’s real and what’s fake in her performance of her own life. Bernadette is constantly taking herself in and out of the roles of both Claire and Madame in Jean Genet’s The Maids (a play also about role-playing) and begins to lose track of her own life. It’s this illusion versus reality question: How powerful can illusions be?
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This conversation has been edited and condensed.
THE EDGE OF OUR BODIES runs through April 27th. For more information, click HERE.
Nina Slowinski is a first-year and a staff writer for the Living Newsletter.
In The Edge of Our Bodies. Photo: Dante Haughton ’19