Comfortably Dumb: A‘Swallows’ review by Mary Simpson
Polaroid images by the cast of ‘Swallows’ cast
In the mid-2000s, performance artist Jill Pangallo posted a series of short videos on YouTube. They all starred Pangallo as Some Lady, a mediocre white woman providing expert instruction on a number of stereotypically masculine subjects. In “Some Lady Kickboxing,” for example, she limply throws left hooks, jabs, and roundhouse kicks at empty air, narrating each move in a monotone teacher voice. Pangallo happened to make these videos at a time when MFA programs were overrun with a type of video art that owed as much to MTV reality shows (Jackass and Punk’d in particular) as it did to John Bock and Ryan Trecartin. White boy MFA artists were making videos of themselves pranking each other in empty studio spaces, dorm hallways, or backwoods residencies. Their low-production videos, which tended to feature erections, boisterous grunting, and slapstick humor, made gallery audiences laugh, reassuring viewers that video art could be digestible, entertaining, and comfortably dumb.
The comic genius of Pangallo’s YouTube videos resides in her Andy Kaufman-like ability to inhabit a pathetic character’s deadpan affect and then commit to that narrative well past the point of comfort. She posted these videos not as art but seemingly in earnest, as if Some Lady were a real person taking up space in these stereotypically masculine fields. Before long, the comments sections on her videos were overtaken with a volcanic rage. YouTube was still in its infancy, but Pangallo’s Some Lady exposed a new formation of the fierce sexism and casual misogyny that we have now grown very familiar with.
Twenty years later, Pangallo has just written and produced her first play, Swallows, which draws on this keen understanding of both the nuance of public platforms and the human impact of male violence. She takes these subjects very seriously while retaining her characteristic deadpan humor, offering us a trio of Gen-X polyamorous friends plus one confused Millennial: four faded stars unable to perform their way out of a decrepit McMansion in the San Fernando Valley. When a former friend—a Gen X peer whose career has catapulted beyond their own—arrives with his sparkling Gen Z girlfriend to “help” film their music video, together they are forced to reckon with a traumatic secret that, like the Undead in the cult horror film they made as teenagers, refuses to stay buried.
In the process, the play examines an ordinary act of violence through very different generational lenses: a cynical acceptance of the status quo (Gen X), a “brands make me feel safe” coziness (Millennial), and a hyper-corrective sense of justice centered on language and accountability (Gen Z). The characters are fully drawn and expertly performed by a talented cast, including Pangallo’s longtime collaborator Becca Blackwell. Their dialogue deftly bounces through cultural references to highlight the absurdity of retro fetishization, such as social media’s conflation of riot grrrl activism with the Spice Girls’ lollipop feminism under the banner “girl power”. The 90-minute one-act play concludes with a stunning performance of original music by cast member Anni Rossi.
Can this group of earnest and fame-obsessed characters resolve their different positions on consent and power? In a moment when ugly YouTube trolling has expanded to swallow the US government, these conversations amount to more than just the idle chatter of washed-up C-listers. Pangallo is showing us all the various generational tropes we can’t help but inhabit, making us each, at once, feel shamed and seen.
Swallows, written by Jill Pangallo and directed by Rosie Glen-Lambert, At LaMaMa Experimental Theater Club through April 6.
Mary Simpson is a writer and artist from Alaska, currently living in Brooklyn, New York.