Rockin' in a Brie World

don't fence her in: Liesel Euler is skipping town for two years, but not before Brie Feingold-Africa becomes a star of stage and disc.
Photo By: matthew silverman

Liesel Euler unleashes her angsty alter ego in a new one-woman show.

by Patrick Rapa

After three years of trolling Fringe stages and upstairs cabarets in search of an audience that understands her, Brie Feingold-Africa has finally arrived. Just in time to say goodbye.

Brie, the elaborately affected singer-songwriter character created by local actress Liesel Euler, is an acoustic guitar–wielding goddess in her own mind. Her jagged little anthems about lipstick heterosexuals and adulterous samurai masters (sometimes dedicated to her daughter, Chocolatey Shatner), are funny, yes, but also sharp and satirical. "I am skinny and rude, I look weird in the nude," goes her signature fight song, "The Singer-Songwriter Song." "I only write songs, I don't eat."

This week, Brie will find herself the star of a one-night-only one-woman play. The Singer-Songwriter Song, her first full-length CD, comes out in August. After that, Euler is moving to Boulder, Colo., to enroll in a two-year MFA program in original experimental theater at Naropa University. "I'll study with the likes of Anne Bogart, Meredith Monk and Moises Kaufmann," says Euler via e-mail from Boulder, where she's apartment hunting. "If you're into this geekoid avant-garde theater stuff it's a bit of a dream team."

She figures she'll be back, but for now we have the CD and Brie! The Musical Dissertation, the one-woman Brie-based play written by Euler's friend H. Vassilyev and directed by Pete Pryor of 1812 Productions. In it, Brie, angry and mysterious as ever, is the antagonist, juxtaposed with graduate student Sarah Levine, whom Euler calls "a timid academic whose relationship to Brie's persona and music in her early 20s is profoundly catalytic, and possibly parasitic." Brie! The Musical Dissertation follows Sarah's attempts to get closer to Brie, the subject of her thesis paper.

The play will also include appearances from Brie's mom, Sarah's mom, Sarah's mom's boyfriend, Sarah's boyfriend, Sarah's girlfriend and Sarah's academic advisor. On top of that, Euler will be performing around 10 songs from the established Feingold-Africa canon, though Euler won't say which ones. "Let's put it this way: Most of the big hits are in there." But that's not to say this Brie is the same Brie you know and love.

That's because Euler, after creating and honing this character since 2002, had to loosen the reins a bit when Vassilyev set about writing the play.

"H. Vassilyev and I are dear friends," says Euler. "That makes it even harder. The bottom line is this: Inspired by Brie's character and songs, he dreamed up an original story about an original character and wove Brie into it.

"The Brie of his play and my Brie of countless cabaret performances are not the same. He and I are clear on this. They are of course very similar, but there are major differences that are very important, to me at least."

Her reluctance is understandable; Brie's kinda complicated. She's simultaneously a satire on a bitter and overeducated singer-songwriter, and the real damn deal. She's also got skills. Shifting tempos between aggressive bridges and catchy pop choruses, she leads what would be a sing-along, were it not for her eloquent disdain for everyone who isn't her.

And when she holds a note too long for comic effect, it's important to observe that it's not off-key. Brie is talented, pretentious and, sometimes, vulnerable. And it's never straight-up comedy, even when she's singing the praises of her own masturbatory prowess ("I got carpal tunnel from fiddling in my funnel"). There's always something more thoughtful and telling around the corner to keep things safely distant from gimmickry. Needless to say, that kind of balancing act takes a steady hand. Euler didn't take it lightly, handing the keys to Vassilyev.

"It took a lot of ego-wrestling for me to put an altered Brie out there. And it would probably serve the play well for me to surrender even more. Every day I try a little harder. There are ways in which the two directly contradict — not that I expect anyone else to notice. H. placed her in this whole historical context that differs from mine, and gave her a phase of major renown, which I simply haven't yet been able to do. Ahem."

Which means what, that Brie is a big star in the world of Brie! The Musical Dissertation?

"She becomes one. Her fame trajectory parallels that of Alanis Morrissette, who, few Americans realize, was a pop star in Canada in her teens, a stadium-filler in the U.S. in her 20s, and is now a nostalgia/post-Lilith/introspective womyn act in her thirties. But you didn't hear that from me."

That parallel makes sense, given the play's rumination on 1990s attitudes and culture. It's set in the now, but Sarah, who spent her 20s in the '90s, thinks she has a unique understanding of a decade too recent for most people to have dissected in a historical context. It's a lot to take in and a lot of effort for a one-and-done workshop performance.

"We hope to entertain the public and then quietly walk away with at least one large grant and a major producer," says Euler. "Do you have a problem with that?"

So, is this Brie going out in a blaze of glory?

"Once you see the show and hear the album, you will know that she is doing nothing of the kind. This is only the beginning. Please be seated and don your blindfold. Your mindhead programming is about to begin. Oh. You mean are we departing Philadelphia, temporarily, in a blaze of glory? Yes."

Brie! The Musical Dissertation, Mon., July 18, 7 p.m., free, The Parlor, 1170 S. Broad St., 215-413-9083. Singer-Songwriter Song CD release party, Tue., Aug. 2, 8 p.m., $12 (includes CD), L'Etage, 624 S. Sixth St., 215-592-0656.