Looking for an alternate perspective on Muslim head coverings? Check out Headscarf and the Angry Bitch, a one-woman show by local artist Zehra Fazal. According to Fazal's presser, Headscarf "is a semi-musical, fully comic exploration of life as a Pakistani Muslim growing up as an American girl in the suburbs." According to City Paper reviewer Mike Riggs, Headscarf is about an "infidel-licking lesbian" persona who sings songs like "The Only Thing I’ll Do Five Times a Day is You." Headscarf rides again this month at Theater J; the press release is after the jump.

City Paper: Deez Nuts. What does the title of the piece mean?

John Johnson: "Deez Nuts" is just like, D.C. . . . I’m sure everywhere people say "Deez Nuts," but when I was in high school, it was like a refrain. "Guess what? Deeeeez nuuuuuts!" It was more of a chant or a cadence. People are familiar with it, you know what I mean? And it refers to a dude’s testicles. So it's a witty title for a show that talks about men’s experiences.

CP: Was Deez Nuts inspired by the Vagina Monologues?

JJ: The show was inspired by talking to men in the community, but the Vagina Monologues is a good reference point for the audience. . . . The world is familiar with the Vagina Monologues, so we used the name to make people understand what it is. This is an all-male spin on that concept, with a real local D.C. flavor. It's a perspective on everything from love to war to having children, being fathers. But unlike the Vagina Monologues, where the women talk a lot about their parts—you know, about hair on the vagina and having periods—Deez Nuts doesn't focus on the male parts so much. It definitely talks about sex and relationships, but it's more about all the things that affect these nuts, instead of the actual nuts.

CP: How have women responded to the show?

JJ: All of the women want to see how men think. That’s been the positive feedback from the show. But on the flip-side, they want to see the female version. They don’t want to see the Vagina Monologues. They want to see the female version of Deez Nuts. . . . The difference would be that it would focus on local, D.C. women. Some women have been brainstorming a name for it. Some suggested "The Honey Pot." It's got to be something clever that refers to women and whatever their nuts would be. Like "Deez Ovaries."

CP: What men did you interview in creating the monologues?

All of them are my artist friends, and they run the gambit from musicians to poets to actors. The majority were men in the arts community, so they can convey a message. They've been practicing that for years. Putting all of their stories under the umbrella of Deez Nuts wasn’t a difficult task to do.

CP: The Vagina Monologues is considered a feminist project, because it discussed issues affecting women that hadn't been addressed so publicly before . . . . Do you think Deez Nuts does a similar service for issues affecting men?

JJ: Ultimately, men and women are compliments complements. So if there’s any type of inequality on either side, it affects both of us. If women are oppressed, so are men, because we’re not enjoying the full potential of our compliment. So it's not against feminism at all . . . This show has all African-American men in it, which is a unique angle. The Vagina Monologues came from a very different vantage point. Deez Nuts is about Chocolate City. All the performers happen to be black men—not that it was initially constructed that way—but their stories definitely reflect that part of D.C.

Responses have been condensed.

Last week, New York Times theater reviewer Charles McGrath penned a piece on Sienna Miller's Broadway debut. The piece has been roundly criticized for overstating Miller's affairs with famous men. The story begins by reviewing Miller's "long and well-documented romantic history," which includes "flings" with "Jude Law, Daniel Craig, James Franco and most recently the married oil heir Balthazar Getty, with whom she was photographed topless and in a sailor hat."

Originally, McGrath had grouped Heath Ledger and Puff Daddy in with the bunch. A correction appended to the story later clarified that the"misstates the nature of the relationships that she had with Heath Ledger and Sean Combs. She was friends with both of them; she did not have romantic flings with either of them." But the problems with McGrath's piece go far beyond the inflated slut-shaming.

Take the paragraph that follows up the topless sailor incident:

Ms. Miller is opening on Thursday in the Roundabout Theater production of “After Miss Julie,” Patrick Marber’s adaptation of the Strindberg play “Miss Julie.” The audience at previews has included Sienna lookalikes, blond fashionistas in miniskirts and heavy makeup, and scholars less of Scandinavian theater, perhaps, than of her Vogue cover appearances. That some people have trouble taking Ms. Miller seriously as an actress—or don’t even know she is one—is because she has so frequently been her own worst enemy.

According to McGrath, Miller's fanbase is a group of shallow "fashionistas" who are so dumb they don't even know that Miller is an actress. Boy, I bet they were confused when they showed up at a Broadway theater to see Miller in a play, and ended up having to sit through hours of acting.

McGrath is concerned that nobody is taking Miller "seriously as an actress." Perhaps the problem is that McGrath refuses to take Miller's fans seriously. Apparently, the people who are willing to shell out the cash to see Miller on Broadway are not "serious" because they read Vogue, wear skirts, and apply make-up. In short, they're girls. Worse, they're girls who look like Sienna Miller. The fact that McGrath instantly discredits entire groups of people who happen to resemble his interview subject says a lot about his own bias in writing this profile.

McGrath spends the remainder of the piece attempting to convince his readers that Miller is capable of "charming" and "sensitive" performances, as if he is the only one who can see past Miller's beauty and relationship history. "Not a great many people have actually seen what she can do," McGrath writes—as if the women lining up to see Miller on Broadway have somehow failed to complete the simpler task of watching one of her films. And despite McGrath's presumably unique appreciation of Miller's talent, he continually refuses to focus strictly on her work throughout the piece. Miller, he writes, is "smaller" and "prettier" in person. She manages to be a good actress despite being "beautiful."

After all this—the rehashing of her former "flings," the snarking on her female fans, the constant protestations of Miller's beauty, and the condescending admission that the girl can actually act in addition to fucking dudes and looking hot, McGrath concludes that Miller is not taken seriously because she has "so frequently been her own worst enemy." I think it's time Miller transfer the "worst enemy" title on over to Charles McGrath.

Photo by Caroline Bonarde Uni via Wikipedia Commons