Inappropriate Touching

Photo courtesy of Robert Melton

Inappropriate Touching

The great thing about FronteraFest's Bring Your Own Venue – particularly when said venue is the artist's own home – is that the audience becomes privy to the performer's own private arsenal of intimate objects. In this case, those objects are not, as one might expect for a show titled Inappropriate Touching, Beegle's collection of sex toys and lingerie. Instead, one need only look as far as her bookshelves to uncover the more likely impetus behind her work. Among the titles: Angela Davis' Women, Race, and Class, and Mary Karr's The Liar's Club.

Although the provocative title of this show and the publicity photo of Beegle naked in bed might lead some to believe they're in for an Annie Sprinkle-style evening of shock-and-awe erotica, Inappropriate Touching is more a hybrid of stand-up comedy and The Moth Radio Hour. More personal sexual historiography than pornography, Beegle's stories are unapologetically confessional and subtly infused with a touch of the feminine mystique.

It's actually a pretty short trip from acquiring the name Barnyard Becky at 12 to being the No. 1 suspect in a feminist bomb plot at Northwestern. Unfortunately, the fact that this one-woman show takes place in a home is really beside the point, as the location itself plays an insignificant role and falls short of realizing its full potential as an integral part of the drama. Still, there's plenty to find amusing in Beegle's revelations. What's not to love about the administration of clinical fellatio and student loan counseling with hookers?