‘Frida, A Self-Portrait’ @ Union Arts Center

Vanessa Severo read a Frida Kahlo quotation that stopped her cold. It was about feeling strange in the world and hoping that somewhere, someone strange in the same way was thinking back.

Severo, a Brazilian American writer and performer who was born with a congenital difference in her left hand, recognized something in it. So, she got on a plane to Mexico City, walked into Kahlo’s blue house and started writing the play she would eventually star in.

“Frida, A Self-Portrait” is what came out of that trip. It is a solo piece, written and performed by Severo, that moves between two women across time. Kahlo at home in 1954, near the end of her life, talking with a journalist about her paintings, her marriages, her body, her grief. And Severo, stepping in and out of character to tell her own story alongside Frida’s. Childhood polio. A devastating bus accident. A surgery that Severo, as a four-year-old, decided not to have. The Portuguese word saudade, which threads through the play.

“Frida, A Self-Portrait” runs from June 6 through 28 at Union Arts Center’s Falls Theatre in downtown Seattle. Three weeks, one performer, two lives and the strange and specific recognition that happens when one woman finds herself in another.

Union Arts Center: Local artists creating theater for everyone. Connecting theater and community. Enlivening downtown Seattle.