Catch Sex-Positive Performance Abbey’s Box While You Can
San Francisco is largely a sex-positive town, but the weekend drama over a Folsom Street Fair attendee’s discomfort with genitals shows that we’ve got some growing to do. To quote a hilarious tweet on the matter, “maybe don’t go to the circus if you’re afraid of clowns.” But on the other hand… Bush, buh-gina, vulva: If any of these words make you uncomfortable, you need to go see Abbey’s Box.
The box is a metaphor for Abbey’s relationship with herself, her sexuality, her voice, and yes, her genitals. It’s a standard U-Haul Sport Utility box that becomes its own animated character over the course of Abbey’s 60 minute show. It bounces and gyrates around the stage, getting smacked and serving as a shoulder to wistfully cry upon.
The show is a bit more enjoyable if you’ve seen The Sound of Music, but it’s not required pre-reading material. We’ll sum it up: A nun moves in with a family, teaches them some songs, and then they flee the Nazis. Like many millennial women, Abbey relates not only to the main adult character Maria but also the 16 going-on 17 girl Liesl, who sings about having to rely on a slightly older Rolf for guidance.
In the same way, Abbey’s character is in her early thirties when she meets a mid-thirties asshole named Daniel. Actually, calling him an asshole is generous of us; you should go watch the show and decide what epithet fits him better.
The Magic Patio Venue
Before the show, we chatted with Abbey’s current partner, who was handling the ticket counter and gummy sales. Just before curtain, he privately assured us that he’s not the subject of the performance, which made watching it two rows behind him a lot easier. Otherwise we might have lobbed those gummies at the back of his head.
The Magic Patio is a best-kept secret spot in the Mission / Bernal neighborhood. Ahead of the show, Abbey sent an email saying, “While I greatly respect wearing high heels on a Wednesday night in San Francisco, unfortunately they are not a great choice for this venue as there are small gaps between the 100-year-old floorboards.” It’s well-lit and quirky, a great intimate venue with stiff yellow chairs and creaking neighboring buildings that make it feel like you’re in a friend’s backyard. That’s actually how the performance space started.
Intimacy and Abbey’s Box
Abbey talks about her childhood experiments with sexuality, especially an early memory of comparing “bah-ginas” with a friend and being shamed heartily for it by an adult who catches them. She details the mechanic starfish-mode sexual exchanges she had in her 20s. Then she brings us to the Pandemic.
Without spoiling it, Abbey’s relationship with others leads her to reflect genuinely on her relationship with herself and she knows it. There are quips about solo shows being basically on-stage therapy, and the fact that one of her most serious relationships happening during a time when she’s lost access to a mental health specialist is key to understanding her vulnerability.
In this way, Abbey’s Box is healing. Catharsis is one of the many reasons you should try and go see live theater; it brings out emotions you might otherwise have left suffocating and bottled up under the surface. To paraphrase my gynecologist, let those breathe a little with a 100% cotton kind of performance. The show is organic, nascent, and the kind of comfortable you only get by spending a lot of time with yourself.
Free Performance is Freeing Performance
Performer Abbey Glover has never done Abbey’s Box for free. She’s taken her solo show everywhere from Vermont all the way to Scotland, but the San Francisco performances at the Magic Patio in Bernal are the first she’s done without charging for the ticket. She says she wanted to make it accessible to as many people as possible.
At the end of the show, Abbey encourages people to visit her digital program and find a list of nonprofit causes she supports, playfully called Abbey’s Favorite Local Things in a nod to the song My Favorite Things.
Abbey explains, “As an artist, my main purpose is to be vulnerable and authentic in the hopes of connecting with people, to make them (and myself) not feel so alone in the things we’ve been embarrassed or ashamed to say out loud for fear of judgment. Abbey’s Box is my first attempt at doing so. It’s a life-affirming story about self-acceptance and the freedom that comes from embracing our true selves in a world that so often pressures us to conform.”
After the show is over, Abbey gestures to her belly and says she’s not alone on stage. She jokes, “I wonder if he’ll be embarrassed,” revealing that she has a baby in her box, so to speak. We’re excited to see how her sex-positive show evolves with motherhood, and we hope you can catch one of the last shows before she goes on maternity leave.
Abbey’s Box has two more shows on Wednesday, October 9th and October 16th. Tickets and details can be found here. Each opening act is different; the first performance had a fantastic routine from Dana Merwin, who warmed up the audience with sleaze.
Howdy! My name is Katy Atchison and I'm an Associate Editor for Broke-Ass Stuart.
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