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VILE
By Francesca Montanile Lyons
Created by Francesca Montanile Lyons
Playing at
Show Description
Pizza, Disaster, Butthole! VILE is a funny, surprising, disgusting, and tender clown-and-buffon-driven exploration of muddling through depression, surviving rape culture, and drowning in modernity.
Genre and Content
Clowning
Comedy
Physical Theater
Solo Show
Audience participation
LGBTQIA+ Content
Political content
Content Warnings
The creators say this show is appropriate for ages 18 and up only
Learn How To Fringe
Seat Reservations and Show Tickets
| Add to Schedule | Date | Time | Ticket Options | Quantity | Purchase |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fri 08/02 | 10:00 PM | ||||
| Sun 08/04 | 4:00 PM | ||||
| Mon 08/05 | 8:30 PM | ||||
| Thu 08/08 | 5:30 PM | ||||
| Sat 08/10 | 7:00 PM |
Reviews
Video Trailer
Cast and Crew
Francesca Montanile
Creator & PerformerFrancesca Montanile Lyons (she/her) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Philadelphia: a performer, director, visual artist, and educator. She conceived of, wrote, and directed 'Dear Diary LOL'- a play made with the words of real-life diaries of teenage girls in the late 90s/early 2000s- which premiered in the 2017 Philadelphia Fringe Festival, followed by a run at FringeArts and the New Ohio in NYC in 2018 to rave reviews (“…we absolutely need more theater like this.” - Exuent NYC 2019). She was a member of 'Girl Poop' (2018-2021), a “delightfully weird” femme foursome specializing in Pussy Pop Rock: short, high-octane ditties inspired by first-person experience set to simple and catchy beats. She also makes cheeky visual art that is often literally cheeky: drawings, embroideries, and animations that celebrate sensuality and eroticism. Across mediums, her work seeks to disempower shame and taboo through playful honesty & voyeuristic delight. Other credits include co-creating/directing ‘Van Gogh Shogh’ by Donna Oblongata (Deep End Studios in PHL Fringe) 'Rough & Tumble' (Canonball Fest in PHL Fringe), 'Legal Tender' (PHL Fringe & AntFest), 'Fourth Quarter' (FPA Fest), co-creating/performing 'The Hopefuls' (2015-2106), and directing 'All 100 Fires' by Donna Oblongata (Panorama), 'Die, Dumping, Die!' (MuralArts/D3), and 'Sometimes the Rain, Sometimes the Sea' (Arts Bank). She has served as Co-Artistic Director of Antigravity Performance Project. Francesca's teaching artistry has ranged from dramatic story times for infants and their caregivers to adjunct teaching at Temple University & UArts, with plenty in between: visiting school classrooms for theater curriculum with various organizations, bilingual arts and literacy classes with the Barnes Foundation/Puentes a las Artes, and sexuality education with Yes to Consent/Puentes de Salud. MFA in Devised Performance from UArts/Pig Iron School (2016). BA in Theatre Arts & Performance Studies from Brown U (2011). www.francescamontanilelyons.com IG: @frenchyfrancesca
More Information
SHOW DESCRIPTION:
Pizza. Disaster. Butthole.
Are you sad? Me too, bestie. Let’s stuff our faces with girl dinner (patriarchal pepperoni pizza pie) and order some face masks for self care (from Amazon because we need them TOMORROW) and watch some tv (that we’ve seen before) while we scroll tiktok (to judge a stranger’s Target haul) all to make sure that we absolutely DO NOT have a feeling (or a memory, or a critical thought.)
In Vile, Francesca Montanile Lyons brings you a solo performance that rides the line between pleasure and disgust, where clown and buffon hold a funhouse mirror to the artist’s self. Here, the laughter is tinged with nausea, and the nausea is tinged with relief. Ingredients include: the decay of late stage capitalism, a skewering of rape culture, the hilarity of depression, plus greasy toes, a balloon penis, extra cheese, and a side of bdsm.
Content Considerations: consent violation, rape/rape culture, kink, depression, suicidal ideation. You can request more details about how these show up here: www.francescamontanilelyons.com/contact
Created & Performed by Francesca Montanile Lyons
Illustrations & Animations by Francesca Montanile Lyons
Creative Collaborator: Alicia Crosby
Sound Design: Tom Carman
This project was supported, in part, by a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant. VILE received the 2024 Touring Artist Grant from MN Fringe. Thank you!
AUDIENCE REVIEWS:
“A technical masterclass in clown & bouffant performance! A mirror to today's society. Everyone should see this show.”
“A funny, surprising, disgusting, tender, clever, and playfully-designed, clown-and-bouffon-driven exploration of muddling through trauma and healing. A generous, cute, weird and confrontational transmutation of sexual violence into kink play, self-discovery, and vulnerable power.”
“For a long time I didn’t think I liked comedy, but after seeing the show I now think I’ve just mostly seen men do it.”
“I went into this basically having no idea what to expect or what it would be about, and on the recommendation of an artist who I admire, and knowing vaguely that Francesca is someone to see perform. I loved having no expectations because it added to the experience of "what the fuck is going to happen and what will be asked of us?" that I experienced during the show. The payoff of the climactic moments of the show were so worth the periods of tension. I was so grateful for the coda at the end.”
“Brilliant. It felt like I was watching my insides perform for me what it’s like to live in my body and mind.”
“I am speechless. This was so incredible. I am blown away and will be processing for a while.”
“An incredibly clever, intelligent, creative performance with so much range and SO much vulnerability. I feel honored to have been able to experience it, and I’ll be digesting it for a while. So impressive. Thank you.”
“Honest and creative. Sensational and striking. Fringe at its finest.”
A NOTE FROM THE ARTIST:
This show was first born from my creative research into performance states that are deeply pleasurable for me as a performer, in part because they are born from unpleasant parts of me. This led me to the territories of clown and buffon, which I studied in my time at the Pig Iron School. Rather than a classic application of these traditional forms, VILE brings them into a modern context with a feminist lens, infused with aesthetics of queer nightlife, influenced by my time performing in the drag and burlesque scene in Philadelphia.
Across mediums, my work seeks to disempower shame and taboo through radical honesty and voyeuristic delight. I create work that is personal and intimate in an effort to reveal broader truths and reckonings, and create connection through vulnerability. I make invitations to myself and my audiences to laugh ourselves out of rigidity, to marvel at how simultaneously silly and tragic and stunning it is to be alive and have a body, so we can remember we are not alone and accept ourselves and each other with compassion. I aspire for my work to be smart but also dumb, which is my favorite. I want to create work that is as pleasurable as it is terrifying.
“Vile” is a show that exemplifies these values and goals. Each time I perform it, I have a conversation with at least one audience member that reminds me why I persist in making art, even when it feels hard, when it’s not profitable or logical, when it’s overwhelming. This piece is personal, but also full of theatricality, physicality, and joy. It’s experimental, it blends genres, and it dares to talk about things we’d often rather hide: assault, violence, depression, isolation, sexuality, kink. But it also dares to champion hope. Our society’s really fucked up, but we have to exist within it. How can we do that? Art is one of the ways that makes me feel I can do that. It nudges me toward connection, toward presence, toward honesty. And having someone express, “I witnessed something here that helped me witness myself. I loved something here that helped me love myself,” that is everything. I would love the chance to share it with you.
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