(Munich, October 2010) A black comedy with songs and live music featuring a mercury-poisoned factory worker, whose monstrous narcissism is matched only by her willingness to love. Pochsy's Lips is the harrowing, hilarious hit written and performed by award-winning writer/performer Karen Hines. Part stand-up, part neo-cabaret, this nightly dip into mercury-induced madness resurrects satire's good name. Eerily coy, seductive but with a poisonous bite, Hines is an artist who redefines what's good for us; and if it hurts this divinely, it must be healthy.
Pochsy is a factory worker. She works at Mercury Packers … where she packs mercury. She's probably dying of mercury poisoning, contracted while handling the stuff at her work. But the details aren't important. Pochsy herself thinks she's dying because there's a squid in the place where her heart should be. We meet her in the hospital and watch in horror and delight as she regales stories and sings songs without a note of political correctness. Ad slogans, self-help mantras and desperate grabs at meaning are thrown our way in this postmodern parody that is hysterically funny but terrifying, remarkably sweet yet bitter all at the same time. Remodelling and blending styles like stand-up, absurdism, clowning and neo-cabaret, Karen Hines creates in Pochsy's Lips some of the most original and cutting satire to hit the stage. Beckett meets Betty Boop in this monologue by Canadian cult heroine Pochsy, our nasty, vapid, utterly charming vixen. Governor General's Literary Award Finalist Winner of the Alberta Writers Guild Award for Drama in The Pochsy Plays International Reviews Ingenious, acidic comedy - The Globe & Mail Hilarious and harrowing - NOW Magazine Beckett would have fallen for her. - EYE Weekly Imagine Greek Tragedy by Betty Boop - The Montreal Gazette I laughed. I cried. I called my friends - Minneapolis - St. Paul Pioneer Press
