I went to see “Jonna’s Body,Please Hold” a one-woman one hour show performed by Jonna Tamases at the Suter Theatre, Nelson last night. The show tells the story of Jonna’s own cancer interspersed with dialogue between Jonna’s body co-ordinator with various organs and body parts. This sounds strange but in Jonna’s expert hands it works a treat. In the end the co-ordinator throws in the towel faced with the overwhelming task of keeping Jonna healthy when she refuses to listen to what her body is telling her. Finally the invasive cancer, portrayed as a French interloper ( foreign – clever eh?) is beaten; Jonna listens to her body at last and takes care of it and no longer subjugates her love of life to her desire to please men. The play is finely honed, very funny and very entertaining. There were many cancer sufferers and survivors in the audience and I got the feeling that their experience resonated with that of Jonna
However there was an underlying message to the play which was that if we don’t respond to our bodies needs and we also subvert our desires then we are a sitting duck for a cancer to invade. The causes of cancer in my book are many – among them genetic and environmental – and the idea that having cancer is somehow the sufferer’s fault does not sit well with me.