Claudia Jeffries is a talented, charismatic performer. Her face is exaggeratedly, wildly expressive - transparently emotional when subtle, positively plasticine when in full-on grotesque mode. It's a pity, therefore, that Jewel, her one-woman devised monologue, doesn't show her - or her skills - off to her best advantage. Following the quest of the clownish, pitifully gawkish eponymous character to win simultaneously the local Five-State beauty pageant and attain the respect of her aloof mother Pearl and embittered grandmother Diamond, Jewel is meandering and unfocused. It melds broad - even silly - dance sequences with moving monologues with such haphazard energy that it's difficult to tell what, exactly, Jewel is supposed to be. It's too grotesque to be genuinely affecting, yet the choreography is muted enough that we can never see Jewel and her dysfunctional family as commedia-style clowns, using comedy to draw out our sympathies. It's hard, too, to interpret Jewel as a critique of the demands upon the female body when much of the implied humor involves mocking Jewel's failure to perform the demands of femininity: are we meant to laugh at poor Jewel, her clownish make-up signifying her as ‘ugly’, for daring to dance while unattractive?
As a performer, Jeffries distinguishes clearly between Jewel, Pearl, and Diamond (even if the costume changes take up an inordinate amount of time), but the script allows each character only minimal development (the most interesting of the characters, Pearl, gets the least stage time). Characters exist only in the flimsiest relationship to one another, and interesting relationships - particularly that of Pearl and her own mother, Diamond - are left hanging. While Jeffries' energy carries us through the forty-odd minute performance and it's hard not to root for her, I was left wishing she had devised a vehicle better suited for her talents.
