Little women.

Since 1981, the Split Britches Company (founded by Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, and Deb Margolin) has written and performed in trio, duet, and solo, as well as collaborated and performed with other artists. They describe their work in this way: 'Our work is rooted in popular culture, but positioned against it. It relies on moments rather than plot, relationships rather than story. It depends on the surprise of transformation rather than the logic of psychological narrative. It straddles the line between performance and theater, exploiting theatricality while exposing the pretense. It is about a community of outsiders, queers, eccentrics. It is feminist because it encourages the imaginative potential in everyone and lesbian because it takes the presence of lesbian on stage as a given.' Their vaudevillian satirical gender-bending performances have received numerous awards, including a Jane Chamber award and four Village Voice OBIE awards. This video documents the first version of their show Little Women: The Tragedy. Here performed as a work-in-progress, the piece tackles complex issues of pornography and feminism through the humor of only two possibilities: heaven or hell, preacher or prostitute, and the left hand and right hand of Louisa May Alcott. Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics