Transcript:

[Joyce J. Scott] Kay?

[Kay Lawal-Muhammad] Yeah.

[Scott] Hi. It’s Joyce. I thought I’d call you and talk to you about the section of the show you’re in.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Oh, great, Joyce, thank you for calling.

[Scott] You know, Kay, when you walk into that space, the entire section is about beauty. And that’s why the Thunder Thighs is in that room.

[Lawal-Muhammad] That’s right. It was fire. It was fire. There’s no question about it.

[Scott] Firstly, our productions were real theater productions about issues. Beauty, politics, racism, gender bias.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Thunder thigh had been a term.

[Scott] It’s an old, old term. “Her thighs are so big they obscure light!” It’s a giant shadow. We wanted to imbue our comedy with some description of who we were, but it had to be power.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Butt!

[Scott] Right! And the thunder is powerful! And we wrote a lot about it. Some of it was centered around food. And food might have been the core that would branch out into these other issues. We were wearing leotards and bustiers.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Very sexy, very sexy. Very-

[Scott] Showing that you could have a good looking body and a brain.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Well, let’s face it, it was a psychotherapeutic experience. That’s our life, that we cover with laughter. We heal it with laughter. And I think the key was, we saw our beauty. A lot of people are prejudiced about fat, but I think they saw in us, beauty. And not just physical, but our hearts, our talent. And they heard us. They heard that we were women of substance.[Scott] That’s true. That was the name of one of our plays: “Women of Substance.”

[Lawal-Muhammad] Yeah.

[Scott] Kay, remember when you were in a refrigerator, and I was outside, begging you for probably a small brisket? You know, you were a big, wise kind of Refrigerator Buddha. And I think that whole thing was about how food takes on a personality of itself.

[Lawal-Muhammad] It does, it does.

[Scott] And how it can be a partner and a friend for you and how you have to reckon with that. Food also represents nourishment. So we talked about intellectual nourishment as well. That was a big thing. That’s what I would like people to see about why I do what I do. And I know why we did what we do. We performed around the United States and Canada. The Fringe Festival in Scotland, in Edinburgh. And then we went to a back door festival in Amsterdam.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Amsterdam, that’s right.

[Scott] And we went to Arnhem and Utrecht. We did a little tour.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Right. Sometimes some of our white audience members were dismayed by our talking about race and

[Scott] intelligence

[Lawal-Muhammad] And our intelligence. They wanted us just to be slap comedy. They loved that part, but many were very uncomfortable. But I remember that that was very clear: They wanted us just to be two clowns. And when we, you know, did some more serious things, especially dealing with race, they, some got uncomfortable, let’s say that.

[Scott] That was part of what I think our job was: to defy the expectations.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Good point. Joyce, I want to tell you the Thunder Thigh Review and us working together was so important for me personally.

[Scott] It was just a great evolution for me and all of it informed my visual work. Because I’m thinking about, you know, a piece of sculpture. Well, yeah, is it sculpture that moves? Ahh.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Joyce, our continued relationship has been a real strong, important sisterhood.

[Scott] Right back at you, baby sis.

[Lawal-Muhammad] Thank you so much.

[Scott] Yup.