No whining for this 'Fat Ass Cancer Bitch'

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Christine Rathbun Ernst is debuting a new one-woman show in a series, this one called "The Fat Ass Cancer Bitch Outside the Box," at Cotuit Center for the Arts.ROBERT TUCKER/FOCALPOINT STUDIO

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COTUIT ? "I swear a lot" is the disclaimer Christine Rathbun Ernst delivers just before offering her audience cookies and reminding them that wine is available in the back of the cozy art studio building venue.

Wine, that is, not whine.

ON STAGE

What: "The Fat Ass Cancer Bitch Outside the Box"

Written by: Christine Rathbun Ernst

When: July 5, 6, 11, 12, 18, 19, 25, 26 and 27 at 8 p.m.

Where: Cotuit Center for the Arts - Summer in the Studio, 4404 Falmouth Road (Route 28), Cotuit

Tickets: $15

Reservations: 508-428-0669 or www.artsonthecape.org

Because while Ernst may swear, scream, cry, laugh and inform, one thing you won't hear is whining. Not about her family losses, her failed first marriage, her illness, her struggles. She is one bad-ass, fat-ass, amazon, warrior, revolutionary and, loath as she may be to use the term, breast cancer survivor.

Ernst is a talented poet, writer and performance artist whose work is at once confessional, confrontational, personal and, above all, powerful.

Her performance, "The Fat Ass Cancer Bitch Outside the Box," is also extremely engaging, entertaining and, by turns, hilarious, riveting and deeply affecting. The moniker of "fat ass cancer bitch was coined by her neighbor (and now friend) whose spontaneous outburst was a turning point in Ernst's struggle and an empowering, pivotal moment.

She is no fan of pink ribbons ("breast cancer is an epidemic, not a shopping spree") and disdains the marketing efforts and exploitation of the disease ("if one in eight men got a scary disease it would be more than ribbons.") Her cancer may have been an impetus to her storytelling, but the story hardly ends with the diagnosis, the treatment, the five-, 10- or 12-year survival statistics. She has a lot more to talk about.

The 70-minute show features roughly 10 pieces, each part poetry, part performance.

Ernst has performed versions of this show throughout New England and locally at the Cotuit Center's Black Box Theater in 2011 and 2012, selling out consistently and, thus, graduating to this larger venue. This incarnation includes some older material (notably the genesis of "Fat Ass Cancer Bitch" and "I Had a Haircut Like That Once") and some timely riffs, clearly just written recently.

One newer monologue, an ostensible open letter to gun rights zealots, brought the audience to its feet: "It's harder to buy Sudafed than a semi-automatic." Ernst cited statistics as rapid-fire as that semi-automatic, clearly questioning the status quo which forgoes background checks at the expense of the lives of 20 first-graders.

While a favorite piece whimsically describes the compromises and comforts of home life where online Scrabble is a form of foreplay (and she has a rack full of vowels!), this reviewer harkens back to "I Had a Haircut Like That Once," which concludes that everyone holds a secret, sad story inside them and emphasizes our common humanity, urging us to connect, engage and value our common experience.

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Source: http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20130707/LIFE/307070324/-1/rss10

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