By Ernest Kearney — Are we the sum of our parts, or our parts themselves?
Can we ever be free to be fully ourselves independent of our features?
Blonde model Jannica Olin developed alopecia in 2013, a condition that hyper-activates one’s autoimmune system to the point where — for reasons science has yet to fathom — one’s hair follicles are targeted; leading to hair loss.
The loss can take various patterns: “alopecia areata barbae” results in the inability to grow a beard, “alopecia areata monolocularis” is limited to one spot on the scalp, “alopecia areata universalis” as the name implies is the loss of all bodily hair and “alopecia areata totalis” which is complete loss of all scalp hair.
In some ways, Ms. Olin’s case was fortunate, in that she was an adult. Most cases of alopecia, as has been my experience, strike individuals at much younger ages. (1)
Still the effect on her self-image and her career as an actress was traumatic, and she duly takes us through her desperate search for a cure, lamenting,
“I just wanted somebody to fix me.”
If her show (Im) Perfekt had fallen into that groove and remained a “poor me pity party,” while it might have been understandable, it would also have been boring.
Instead Ms. Olin takes us on an odyssey involving image, assumptions, judgments and labels, those which others apply to us and those with which we burden ourselves.
Eventually she comes to the realization that her alopecia is not an imperfection, not a disease, not a contagion or an ailment – it is part of her.
It is not a label, it is who she is.
The journey is fascinating, as stories of personal struggles against adversity usually are, but what powers this narrative are both the comedic abilities of Ms. Olin and her brilliance in character portrayal which make (Im) Perfekt not only inspiring, but darn entertaining.
A GOLD MEDAL.
(Im) Perfekt was directed by Jessica Lynn Johnson.
(1) By pure happenstance, I’ve known six people who had alopecia. The first was in elementary school, a young classmate whose family went to extreme measures to “fix” her, such as a Turkish doctor who serrated her bald scalp with a razor blade and then rubbed a mixture of lemon juice and gunpowder into the incisions. Needless to say, it was to no avail.
playing during The Fringe
(I’m) Perfekt
Has been Extended for Another Show
Saturday July 20 2019, 5:00 PM | 1hr
Lounge Theatre (Lounge 1)
6201 Santa Monica Boulevard
For Extension Information: http://hff19.org/5720
For Events, Plays and Other Fun Fringe News and Info: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/
