ABSTRACT
"Return of the Chocolate Smeared Woman" was staged in a tiny theater in lower Manhattan, with the audience sitting quietly in amazing discomfort on empty paint buckets instead of chairs. The warm-up act, the Dancing Furballs, consisted of several chocolate-marked young people dancing with enthusiasm but not much coordination. Wearing only panties and gold high-heeled shoes, she began smearing her body with chocolate and asked if anybody in the audience would like to come up and take a lick for $20. This is an odd way to begin a show, particularly since the chocolate is supposed to represent excrement and what men like to do to women's bodies. But art is art, and two women in the audience finally were coaxed onstage to lick a bit of chocolate off one thigh and her belly button. The licking apparently concluded the lighthearted section of the program, because Karen Finley quickly launched into her familiar tirade mode.
