Sins Invalid

I don't often go to the theater. It's not that I don't want to: it's that I can't afford it. So, on Friday night when I found myself invited to a performance at the Brava Theater priced at $10-$15 (and, in typical San Francisco fashion, promised that no one would be turned away due to lack of funds), I went.

The performance was called Sins Invalid, the third-year effort of a group committed to embracing "an unshamed claim to beauty in the face of invisibility." In short, it was a performance that sought to bring light to the relationship between disability and sexuality: namely, that the able-bodied public pretends such a relationship doesn't exist.

That afternoon, a friend brought up reservations about attending the show. You'll see a lot of images that you wouldn't normally see, she warned. It will be intense. I understood what she was saying, but wasn't that the point?

The show consisted of a series of short performances, never longer than ten minutes each, many taking monologue form, but some setting up interactions between the performers. An able-bodied guide, as she called herself, served as the MC and framed the performances with explanation, theory, and well-worded requests for the audience to go on a journey or unraveling along with the performers. It was all very touchy-feely.

But in a good way. The performance reminded me of the reason we go to the theater (even when we can't afford it): to be made to think. Yes, sometimes we go to be entertained, to escape from the stress-filled world we live in, to laugh, but we also go to challenge the way we look at the world and to be forced to reevaluate our position.