Indelible at the Tenement Theatre

By Arlene McKanic/Greenwich Village Gazette

ndelible, performed by rocker/actress/cater-waiter Florence Yoo and her band, is another work in progress presented by the The Immigrant Theatre Project. Yoo, a greatly talented and diminutive young woman with hip length black hair, rocked out with her band and in between songs engaged in loopy, stream of consciousness banter and played video tapes that dealt with her crises, including her love life “which is currently messed up.” According to Yoo, her unusual qualities, which included being the only Korean American in her part of Evanston, Illinois, used to puzzle her till she realized, “I may be weird, but this is American and there's a market for that here!” She also auditioned for the role of a frustrated Asian mama, but lost to another actress who brought a couple of kids to the call back. “I forgot the props!” Yoo lamented.

A few other things Yoo wanted the audience to know about her was that she fled to California to become a musician, and now, to pay the rent, she’s a cater-waiter, a waitress for a catering company, which she claims caused her to lose twenty five pounds -- counterintuitive, but true.

The videos featured her dead relatives, comedienne Margaret Cho talking about regretting the perm in her hair, her attraction to redheaded women (“I think it’s a Charlie Brown thing,”) and the prospect of never having sex again, Yoo’s friends musing about love, Yoo and her friends singing together like a girl group, with Yoo standing on a box to be as tall as everyone else, Yoo expounding on love and depression, and her phone messages. These vignettes were not at all boring, but had an overall sweetness.

The band that night was made up of Yoo on guitar, Julia Cho on bass, who also sang harmony, sweetly, and Diana Pizzari on drums. Jennifer Estaris played the flute and also contributed some eerie vocalizations. The songs, all written by Yoo, were amusing and often delicately poignant (“I Always Hoped You Loved Me,” “The Early Morning Sun,” “I Don’t Think I Know You Anymore,” were three of them) and left the audience feeling happy in the end.

One was tempted to think of Yoo’s group as a mostly Asian female version of the Monkees, for their music had that same buoyancy, and they had the same ability to handle ballads and happy loud songs with equal skill. One might even include here a loud, angry, happy song dedicated to Yoo’s neighbors, who practice their music, badly, for many hours of the day. The lyrics are “You suck!” screamed several times at the top of the lungs over a howling guitar.

Indelible, named for all those who made a lasting impression on Yoo, will be presented in an expanded version -- imagine this -- in the fall. The series, American Dreams will run at 97 Orchard Street till August 9.