‘Sort Of’ star Amanda Cordner is ‘incandescent’ in ‘Body So Fluorescent’ at Buddies In Bad Times theatre: ‘The show deserves full houses’

A Black performer wobbles onstage looking the worse for wear: smeared makeup, dishevelled hair weave, revealing party clothes. They address the audience directly, asking our help in figuring out what happened last night when they were out clubbing. Something went wrong with their best friend and someone named Shenice was there too.

And suddenly Shenice is there again: lights shift, the performer’s body, voice and manner shift, and this much more forthright person tells you that she “ain’t no basic bitch.”

Such lightning transformations between characters and the emerging revelation of the relationship between them is the central theatrical conceit of Amanda Cordner and David di Giovanni’s “Body so Fluorescent.” Key to the show’s success is Cordner’s incandescent talent as a performer, well known to fans of the breakaway CBC TV series “Sort Of” in which Cordner (who uses she/they pronouns) plays 7ven, irrepressible bestie of lead character Sabi.

Through the story of successful Black woman Desiree and her mess of a white gay best friend Gary, the show plunges into the turbulent waters of cultural appropriation. Shenice is a Black female persona Gary puts on when he and Desiree go out together, and after many years of buying the drinks and holding the coats, Desiree’s finally had enough.

Through the storytelling — somewhat confusing at first, but soon pleasingly complex — we find out what finally made Desiree snap and the history behind it. The story that emerges allows Cordner to show off their dazzling physical, vocal and emotional range as a performer.

In one moment they’re playing a white man putting on an exaggerated Black female persona quoting Destiny’s Child lyrics; the next they’re an increasingly exasperated Black woman navigating a dance floor as gay men grab her ass and ask to touch her hair; and then they’re the same Black woman the morning after, speaking honestly and angrily about her co-dependent intimacy with her messed-up friend.

Di Giovanni’s staging, co-produced by Madonnaera, Buddies in Bad Times and b current, successfully employs a less-is-more esthetic, leaning mostly on Rebecca Vandevelde’s versatile lighting (and multiple disco glitter balls) to create different playing areas and atmospheres onstage.

Vandevelde’s lights and Steven Bowa’s composition and sound design ably support the quick switches of focus that articulate the relationship between Gary and Shenice. Vandevelde’s backdrop of stretched plastic becomes an effective visual metaphor for Desiree’s tortured path through the crowded club in the show’s second half.

While mostly a one-person show, the evening also features two performances by a drag queen of colour (Sanjina Dabish Queen at the performance reviewed).

I attended “Body So Fluorescent” at a relatively quiet final preview. The show deserves full houses and will likely burst to life when it meets its community.

Cordner and di Giovanni have been developing this material for more than seven years and, during that time, the questions it’s asking about queer and BIPOC identities and appropriation have moved to the centre of the cultural conversation. This mainstage presentation could not be better timed.