Is history constrained to what we learned in eleventh grade U.S. History class? Does it admit words that were spoken but never written down? In interviews, essays, and her plays, Suzan-Lori Parks stretches the concept of history such that it grows both more ambiguous and more open to critical thinking. By exploring the history of Saartjie Baartman in Venus, Parks suggests that history as it is typically written, conceptualized, and politicized is insufficient to understanding the complexities of the human life that makes it up.

Venus follows Saartjie Baartman, dubbed the Venus Hottenton, as she seeks opportunity in London. Quickly, the city# takes her and turns her into a side-show freak. Viewers frequently cross proper physical boundaries to feel her supposedly enormous bottom. The play mimics the historical accounts of the court trial that ensued, wherein a group of concerned citizens challenged the legality of her circumstances, but the court finds that she desires to continue her performances. Eventually, a doctor offers the Venus the opportunity to leave the show-business life. A short romance ensues, but society persuades the doctor to leave the Venus so that she will die and he will be able to study her remains.

As a historical piece, viewers and critics of this play put it under extra scrutiny, and because the Venus represents a real person, critics take strong stances about the appropriateness of Parks’ representation. Some found that by putting the Venus on display within the play allows the original injustice to continue as today’s audiences gawk at Saartjie Baartman’s figure with the same voyeuristic gaze as when she was alive (63).  Though, what seems to spark the most heated controversy is how Parks characterizes the Venus’s attitude toward her own situation. Coco Fusco explains critically, “the protagonist appears not only to be complicit in her exploitation, but enjoying it”  (31).  Others applaud Parks’ characterization as “wise” for not victimizing Baartman or trying to induce sympathy (24,75).

Between the Honeymoon and Death

We only printed our wedding pictures

Last month.

On our one month anniversary

We saw our kitchen cabinets

As the before picture

In an advertisement.

I hear cockroaches

In our Married-Student-Housing

Apartment ceiling.

They chirp to each other

Mocking my cooking

But they still eat

The instant rice from

Our Waterford Crystal

Wedding Heirloom.

When I’m alone I watch

Re-runs of the show my mom

Loved when I was a kid:

A sixty-year old man

In a healthy sexual relationship

With an eighteen-year old,

And a ninety-year-old woman

Who dances on her own grave.

The last time I checked,

Jack-o-lanterns do not age well

But caterpillars do

So I’ll slink around in fuzzy green

Slippers that sweep the floor as I walk.

Before we got married

His seventy-seven year old

Grandma Inga, who always

Smells like cinnamon, told me

With a heavy Finnish accent

            You have a new home now, you know,

            You can’t be always with your mom now

When I was a child

My mother didn’t let us

Carve our pumpkins

Until after Thanksgiving.

One year we stuck cucumbers

In a jar with vinegar and dill

After nine weeks they birthed pickles.

Now I have fine lines and

I still have acne.

I hear Bruhas chanting,

((With background chanters, honeyed voices))

           

  Take this  

          Stay Young  

                        ((Rejuvenate))

                        ((Replenish))

            Goodbye Wrinkles    Goodbye Sun

            Rub your face in Bubblegum ((Scented!))

            Release Bubbles

            Eternal Youth Tamed, Bottled, and Sealed

            ((Oo-Ah-Ah-Ah 

Oo-Ah-Ah))

But I don’t even like Forever 21’s clothing.

Was Mrs. Robinson

Clinging to Benjamin Braddock’s youth

Or enjoying her own maturity?

(Childhood Memory)

AUNT             It needs something to shock it alive these days

MOM             Not really

AUNT             Everything sags now

MOM             I don’t know, it’s better than before… the umph’s been redistributed, and

Young wines have too much tannin for my taste anyways.

Weekly Inga-ism:

I need to feed the cat some turkey

So that he will get off the table.

One summer, I babysat

A professor’s cat,

Who was so old,

He was more like a Muppet

Than a cat,

He coughed when he meowed.

She said if Whiskers dies

Put him in the freezer.

When I die,

Don’t put me in the freezer.

We hit a meat sale at Hy-Vee

To stock our freezer.

They put stickers on the beef

“Color is not a good indication of freshness.”

The old men

Who live near the Viagra factory

Report feeling virile.

My mother told me the secret ingredient

In her strawberry cake recipe—

Feeling the right amount of cinnamon,

Based on the juiciness of the strawberries.

Adjust bake time relatively.

Still, my cakes aren’t as moist as hers.

We’ll replace our kitchen cabinets someday.