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NAOMI BENNETT
Shy girl gone wild
BY CAMILLE DODERO

Ever since she was a little girl, Naomi Bennett has "wanted to do theater." But there was a minor problem: the Upton native was too shy. So shy that she never landed the "good parts" in high school or at drama camp. So shy that she’d always find herself getting buried in the proverbial chorus, even though admittedly she can sing only "when I’m drunk or when I’m in the bathroom." So shy that the Somerville resident still giggles nervously when talking about how bashful she used to be.

Something changed, though she can’t quite put her finger on it. Today, she dusts her face in white, attaches strings to her limbs, and performs as a giant puppet. She also dresses up in drag, pretending to be "a guy dressing up as a woman," plays a revolutionary Hooters girl, and delivers a baby onstage to a Paul Anka song.

Bennett’s shift from backstage to center stage began after she graduated from UMass Amherst. For a few years, she worked as a director, choreographer, costume designer, set designer, and even a freelance electrician. But eventually she decided that she didn’t like backstage politics and relocated to Montreal, where she spent seven months working with French artists. "I finally felt comfortable enough with myself to perform," she recalls one Thursday morning at the Diesel Café, in Davis Square. She participated in this "weird, avant-garde piece about crowds" in Canada, then enrolled in a Commedia dell’Arte course in Venice, and later returned to Boston.

Once back in Boston, Bennett’s first real project was acting in two shows put on by the Illegitimate Theater Company, an undergroundvaudeville-type cabaret troupe headed by local chanteuse Leah Callahan. In the second show, Some of My Best Friends Are Men, Bennett played a Farrah Fawcett–type character who headed up a Hooters restaurant. Working with Callahan, Bennett still had to contend with her performance-anxiety nerves. "The first couple of shows, I actually had to have a drink because I was so nervous."

Strangely, Bennett’s involvement with the Illegitimate Theater led to her performing drag. "At the photo shoot and rehearsal, about five different people thought I was a guy in drag." She wasn’t offended. "I thought, ‘That’s really cool.’ " Instead, she started Truth Serum’s monthly tranny/drag/high-femme showcase, TraniWreck. "So the drag that I do, I try and encourage the idea that I’m a guy in drag. I tape down my boobs and I put in fake ones and sometimes I stuff my pants. " While pretending to be a man dressed up as woman, she’s lip-synched to Klaus Nomi, been thrown in a garbage bag, and acted out Paul Anka’s "(You’re) Having My Baby" by rigging herself up with a pillow, a fake baby, and a collapsible water bottle. "At the end," she remembers, "water flew all over the audience."

A physical-comedy teacher and lifeguard at the Cambridge Family YMCA by day, Bennett devotes most of her free time to a human-puppet troupe called the Grindhouse Marionettes. Less than a year old, the eight-to-10-member vaudeville-style group has already opened for the Dresden Dolls, played at the Coney Island Mermaid Parade, and enacted Tim Burton stories along with their own original pieces. "We’re humans, by the way," clarifies Bennett. "Everybody immediately thinks that we work with life-size marionettes. We’re people on strings being controlled by people."

Bennett nearly fell off the stage once while acting as a puppet, but that’s not the most traumatic thing she’s ever had to deal with onstage. "I was in Mame [in the chorus] and my skirt fell off. I had a leotard and tights on. I was also 16. So, like, my ballet skirt just slipped off in the middle of a number and I was like, ‘Oh that was very nice.’ " Still, she managed not to break character. Not bad for a shy girl.

Naomi Bennett performs with the Grindhouse Marionettes in What’s in Your Closet? at the Cambridge Family YMCA’s Durrell Hall (820 Mass Ave, Cambridge) on Saturday, October 1, at 7pm. Also appearing are Uncle Monsterface, Sukey Tawdry, and What Time Is It, Mr. Fox? The show is open to all ages, and tickets are $8 in advance and $10 at the door. Call 617.661.9622 or go to www.grindhousemarionettes.com.


Issue Date: September 23 - 29, 2005
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