Cola's latest performance piece, "zombie at a blood drive" is at once disturbing and comical while managing to be a complete waste of time. not that wasting time is a bad thing in Cola's world. in fact, it's the whole point of her show.
Zombie promised to be a fifteen-minute piece wherein the audience would be in and out of the performance space so fast that they shouldn't even take off their coats. What was delivered was an hour-long production which involved audience participation on many levels.
Cola played on the audience's squeamishness by asking on lookers to set the stage more realistically by actually giving blood. (Cola, being the opportunist she is, only performs this piece at previously planned blood drives.) the people that agree to give blood are set to go both before and after her so that she is simply one of a wave of donors. the result of this is that Cola is often lost in the performance. the audience begins to focus on their friends giving blood and their own unwillingness to volunteer. the reactions of those around her are real, forcing people to put themselves in Cola's place.
to further push the point, Cola gives each non-participating audience member a clipboard with the forms that they would be filling out had they given blood and notes on the context of each movement in the piece. Cola moves through each station, giving out more information about her personal life and her feelings on her current situation. the written element allows her to express her frustrations with the world without breaking the seemingly mandatory silence of the room.
each element of the piece creates an atmosphere of futility. each movement in the performance takes twice as long as it should. The text eventually breaks down into a rant about the elements of drama in Cola's life. The performance eventually becomes little more than a sounding board wherein she can release the emotions that seem to have been building up over a long period of time; leaving her empty, much like the blood bag she attempts to fill.
Cola ends the piece by sitting up and yelling "the world has drained me to the blood of my very veins! " the audience feels much the same after having spent so much time on so little.
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