Friendship and Fluorescence: David di Giovanni and Amanda Cordner discuss their electric new show at Buddies in Bad Times

Best friends since high school, theatre artists David Di Giovanni and Amanda Cordner are the creators of  Body So Fluorescent, a solo show being performed by the award-winning Cordner (Sort Of, The Expanse, Baroness von Sketch Show) at Toronto’s Buddies in Bad Times Theatre. 

Naturally, the show’s story centres on two friends: Gary and Desiree. We see them retracing their steps from the club they visited last night . . . in order to figure out how the evening ended in an explosive fight. In the process of untangling the facts, they shift from self to alter-ego – but after the dust settles, can their friendship be rebuilt? Through this engrossing story, Body So Fluorescent explores themes of friendship unravelling, Blackness, otherness, and appropriation.

The piece was inspired by two articles: one from TIME Magazine, and another called “Dear White Gays: Don’t Listen to Time Magazine.” It began life as a 25-minute short play that premiered at the Rhubarb Festival in 2016. From there, Di Giovanni and Cordner grew it into an hour-long show that premiered at Calgary’s IGNITE Festival in June 2017. The title of the play is a direct quote from Beyonce’s “Drunk In Love”, and is inspired by Walt Whitman’s poem “I Sing The Body Electric”. It is meant to evoke a feeling of transcendence and oneness on the dance floor.

When asked about the characters of Gary and Desiree, the creators stress that they represent opposing viewpoints, but each carries their own truths, requiring audiences to move beyond simple assessments of right and wrong. “Gary was the first character to be created and is featured in most of the first part of the play,” explains Di Giovanni. “Desiree came later: and she was really created through conversations between me and Amanda, inspired by both of our experiences of feeling loneliness and isolation on the dance floor.” Cordner is rarely cast as a character who is quiet, mousy or understated – which Desiree is – but the creators really wanted to “take on this challenge”. And Cordner relishes all aspects of performing “the entire piece, beginning to end.” 

In addition, “it is so satisfying to have audiences witness this work.” Two of the best surprises to come from creating Body So Fluorescent are its longevity and its ability to speak to people from all backgrounds. A big “surprise is when people who do not identify as Black and/or queer come up to us and tell us how they’ve seen themselves or their relationships in the dynamics of the play,” they reveal. 

And Di Giovanni and Cordner hope that audiences take from the show a sense of the complexity of appropriation. “There’s no real fine line as to when something is ‘okay’ and when it’s ‘not’. It’s complicated and complex: especially when someone may be taking on mannerisms or turns of phrases as a means of strength and empowerment,” Di Giovanni notes.

For Cordner, it has been a “glorious gift” to share “the work of me and my best friend” with audiences across the country. Cordner has so enjoyed travelling with “my brother and artistic partner. And the fact that this show has been living, morphing and thriving since 2016.–what?! Okay, let’s go!!”  

Body So Fluorescent is a co-production between madonnanera, Buddies in Bad Times Theatre and b current performing arts, and runs until April 23, 2023. Reserve tickets on buddiesinbadtimes.com.

© Arpita Ghosal, SesayArts Magazine, 2023