VIDEO: Solo Actor/Playwright Siobhan O'Loughlin Wants To Borrow Your Bathtub

Solo actor/playwright Siobhan O'Loughlin has performed her piece about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, THE ROPE IN YOUR HAND, and her exploration of the issues surrounding female body hair, NATURAL NOVICE, across America and overseas in venues you would traditionally call theatres.

But her newest, BROKEN BONE BATHTUB, requires a playing area that's more site-specific.

The Brooklyn-based artist/activist is an avid bicyclist, using two wheels regularly to travel the city throughout her daily routines. After a collision with another biker left her with a broken hand wrapped in a cast that needed to be kept dry, daily showers became difficult and impractical.

Hence, she began getting clean by visiting friends and borrowing their bathtubs. Sometimes she would bathe privately, but sometimes a friend would have a seat and keep her company, assisting with back-scrubbing and shampooing and getting into deep conversations about health care, relationships and people's dependency on one another.

That experience is recreated in a play where O'Loughlin portrays a woman in a similar situation. Instead of theatres she has performed BROKEN BONE BATHTUB in the bathrooms of people who have offered to host.

The audience consists of as many people who can comfortable fit in the bathroom, usually 6-8, with those who have expressed a willingness to participate seated up front. O'Loughlin is nude, already in the tube as they enter, but there's nothing sexual about the performance. Long-lasting bubbles do the job of covering her up.

After engagements in Japan, Ireland and across the United States, O'Loughlin settled into New York this December, performing in bathtubs throughout the city, and has forty more performances scheduled for January. Because of the unusually nature of the play, audience members buy tickets knowing the general area where the performance will take place, and are given the specific address after making a purchase. Visit elephantrundistrict.org for tickets and information.

BroadwayWorld readers have been enjoying the details of O'Loughlin's bathtub tour with her entries as a guest blogger (click here) and her new video offers a quick glimpse of this unique theatre piece.