Press Release: Fat Ass Cancer Bitch: Resistant Gray at Cotuit Center for the Arts

Cotuit Center for the Arts presents “Fat Ass Cancer Bitch: Resistant Gray” written and performed by Christine Rathbun Ernst on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 17 and 18, at 7:30.

“Resistant Gray” is Ernst’s all-new collection of stories, monologues, and humor about aging, relationships, everyday life and the larger picture. Now in its eighth year, FACB is part stand-up, part storytelling; it is funny, searing, honest, and relevant. And there will be wine and cookies.

“I finally stopped coloring my hair,” said Ernst. “My bleach blonde hair is now quite dark, except for a cowlick at the front, where it is pure white, and people keep asking me, ‘How’d you get that part so white?’ like I go to the salon to have it done.”

“’Rage,’ I reply. ‘Just rage.’ ”

The term “resistant gray” has a lot of layers: it is not only about aging, but about not wanting to become invisible, wanting to be relevant, and also about political resistance. “Resisting and persisting is our job now,” said Ernst. “And what I am resisting now, it would not have occurred to me to resist a year ago, as woke as I thought I was. The landscape is changing daily.”

In the course of writing a piece on the Me Too movement. Ernst started a me-too inventory. “After I wrote the piece, I kept remembering other incidents, and I would jot them down, things and events that I had totally forgotten about — they were so much the fabric of my every day.”

Her list of past and current me-too moments grew. “So I have this accumulating record that is at once depressing and saddening, and also thrilling and affirming because to see those facts in black and white, on this huge spreadsheet in chronological order, is to be able to say, ‘That was wrong.’ It is huge,” Ernst said.

Ernst will also share her thoughts on marriage, menopause, aging parents, raising daughters, not being a jerk, and trying to understand what our work should be when it all feels so overwhelming, which, Ernst said, “is sort of the theme every year, but this year it feels like there is so much more at stake. But don’t worry — I’ll make you laugh, too! We have to find the humor, right?”

“FACB: Resistant Gray” will also be presented at the Cultural Center of Cape Cod on Wednesday, July 25, at 7:30 PM; at Wellfleet Preservation Hall on August 1, and at Cape Cod Theater Company, home of Harwich Junior Theater, on Friday and Saturday, September 7 and 8, at 7:30 PM.

Tickets are $20. Wine is available for purchase. For more information, visit artsonthecape.org, or call 508-428-0669. Cotuit Center for the Arts is at 4404 Route 28 in Cotuit.

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What:

FACB: Resistant Gray with Christine Rathbun Ernst

Where:

Cotuit Center for the Arts, 4404 Route 28, Cotuit

When:

Tuesday, July 17, and Wednesday, July 18, 7:30 PM

Admission:

$20

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