Jarring Voices: Preserving and Releasing Memory in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Pickling (1988)

• Main Author: Marie Pecorari
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche "Texte et Critique de Texte" 2013-06-01
• Series: Sillages Critiques
• Subjects: American theatre; dramaturgy; memory; performance; Suzan-Lori Parks; voice
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/sillagescritiques/3073

The playlet Pickling, presented by its author as an irresolvable equation between “spending time/saving time”, features a single character post-poning the beginning of her own performance, surrounded by jars containing memories and used as musical instruments to resurrect lost voices. Parks builds the work around a series of contradictions: refusing to perform still amounts to performing, albeit a different production, preserving pickled parts implies a physical transformation, then casting doubts as to the quality and legitimacy of the artifact compared to the original, etc. The tightening/opening up of the jars takes on a metaphorical, metatheatrical dimension typical of Parks' obsessively self-referential oeuvre. The juxtaposition of logical impossibilities turns the work into a hermeneutical quandary, leaving the equation unresolved: is Miss Miss a self-parody of or foil for Parks? Both and neither.