Women Who Dream of Killing

If you were in New Orleans two months ago, and very lucky, you might have been standing in a dreamlike triangular meadow where the Industrial Canal meets the curve of the Mississippi River, taking part in a work called Lower 9 Stories. A stunning new "site-specific" performance piece exploring environmental racism in New Orleans' 9th Ward, Stories was staged and directed by a brilliant young New Orleanian theater artist named Kathy Randels. Working with tugs and cargo ships gliding just behind her actors, Randels accomplished scene changes by moving the audience through a series of standing sets along the levee, drawing spectators into an intimate collaboration with the play. Rooted in agitprop truck-bed performance and "folk" theater, the show both honored and transcended its sources.

You'd have to visit New Orleans to see Lower 9 Stories (if it's ever staged again), but you can catch Randels herself, and her stunning one-woman show Rage Within/Without, in S.F. this week. Rage (which Randels wrote, and has been performing in several evolutions since 1991) is about women who kill (or dream of killing): kids, lovers, abusive partners, parents, and random strangers. The text is complex and disturbing -- neither a simplistic celebration of women's anger nor an apology for it. It ultimately circles in on Kali, the dark Hindu goddess of universal destruction. It's partly based on Randels' interviews with battered women and women in prison, and partly on extensive historical research. The 28-year-old Randels is as fine a dancer as she is an actress, and it's your call to describe Rage as a dance performance with dialogue or a drama with dance. But whatever the category, this is a dangerous, passionate, powerful work, featuring a fascinating text and an explosive performance. The show is presented by Theater of Yugen Monday at 8 p.m. at the Noh Space in Project Artaud, 2840 Mariposa (at Florida), S.F. Admission is $8.50. Call 621-7978.

-- Michael Goodwin