By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — One of the gains of the women's movement has been the recognition of the way that women have been excluded from history, their contribution to political and cultural life ignored or trivialised.
Over the past few years writers and other artists — mainly female — have rescued a number of fascinating and powerful women from their undeserved obscurity, and inspired us with their stories. One of these women is Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
Kahlo is now recognised as one of the most important artists of modern times. Her works now sell for up to US$2 million each, her extraordinary life has been the subject of several biographies, and such interest has been aroused in her life and art that a recent newspaper article referred to "Fridamania".
Melbourne audiences are soon to get a chance to find out more about the woman who has inspired such interest. Viva la vida — Frida Kahlo, written by Karen Corbett and performed by Handspan Theatre, will begin on April 30.
Handspan, an innovative company that uses both actors and puppets, is an appropriate choice, because Kahlo had a lifelong fascination with puppets and toys. The play uses image, text, music and movement to bring her complex and eccentric personality to life.
Director Angela Chaplin spent part of last year in Latin America, directing the Australian play Frankenstein's Children for the Teatro Nacional Juvenil de Venezuela. The cultural and political insights she gained through her experiences there have influenced her treatment of Kahlo's life.
"I was very inspired by the magic realism which is found in a lot of Latin American culture, which is an attempt to give form to feeling and thought", she says. "I was also impressed by the courage of a lot of artists, which is something I feel the Australian artistic community could learn a lot from. Both of these qualities were very much evident in Frida's life."
Chaplin sees the interest in Frida Kahlo as largely due to the attraction that a strong and determined woman artist has for many women who are also trying to survive in a male-dominated artistic community. She also lived a life that was inherently romantic and dramatic.
Kahlo was born in 1907 to a respectable middle-class family. At 18, she was impaled on a metal rail in a horrific bus accident. As a result, she was in constant pain and encased in steel and plaster corsets for months at a time for the rest of her life. While convalescing, she became a painter obsessed with her own image, often using her art to express her pain in a way that is confronting and disturbing.
Kahlo and her husband, muralist Diego Rivera, were both active dged as leaders of the avant-garde and bohemian art circles. Picasso was her personal friend and Leon Trotsky one of her many lovers. She also had relationships with women and often wore cropped hair and men's suits — scandalous behaviour in Mexico's conservative, macho society.
Chaplin points out that Viva la vida, as well as being a biography of Kahlo, explores a number of political questions. These include the conflict between indigenous Mexican and imperialist European culture — something Kahlo, who had both Mexican and German ancestry, experienced personally — and the relationship between politics and art. "At the time, many Communists considered Frida's art to be less valid than Diego's because she concentrated on her own feelings and experiences rather that political issues."
There has been some debate around whether Kahlo's communism was a genuine belief or simply a reflection of Rivera's influence. Chaplin believes that while Kahlo certainly was influenced by her husband, it would be wrong to discount her political conviction. "In fact, it seems that her politics strengthened after they separated. One of her last public appearances was at a Communist Party rally, at a time when she was really ill and confined to bed much of the time."
Viva la vida — Frida Kahlo promises to be an exciting experience and essential for anyone wanting to find out more about an extraordinary woman. It will run from April 30 to May 22 at the Gasworks Theatre. For bookings phone (03) 699 3253.