About
Removable Parts is a tenderly dysfunctional music-theater piece that deals with the phenomenon of voluntary amputation, a real-life condition in which people have a compulsive desire to remove an otherwise-healthy limb. They call themselves “wannabe amputees,” and they believe that self-imposed amputation is the only way they can be whole.
Removable Parts takes an empathetic, Oliver Sacks-style approach to voluntary amputation. In fact, Oliver Sacks himself once experienced something similar to what wannabe-amputees experience every day, which inspired his book, A Leg to Stand On. Sacks writes:
I was bewildered by an experience, a sort of “alienation” of an injured leg, which I could not comprehend or communicate to my doctors. My only relief was to write about it.
Sometimes people who suffer temporary paralysis of a limb — after a traumatic accident, for example — come to view the limb as an invasive, foreign entity, even though they understand logically that it’s still a part of their body. This delusion could be caused by a temporary abnormality in the brain brought on by the trauma. This same neurological abnormality might be a constant presence for wannabe-amputees.
The composer and writer of the show, Corey Dargel, based his lyrics on documented case-studies of wannabe-amputees. His characters are certainly quirky, as you would expect from a show about voluntary amputation, but their idiosyncratic behaviors and strange desires are subsumed into larger issues of disconnection and longing. As they tell their stories and sing their songs, you may be surprised to find your heart breaking for them. The New York Times‘ theater and dance critic, Claudia LaRocco, writes:
Amputation, especially when it’s self-imposed, is a loaded and problematic metaphor. Mr. Dargel and company handle it with an intelligent grace that is as moving as it is impressive.
So, why does Removable Parts ask you to empathize with wannabe-amputees? And why on earth would you want to? Here’s Darcy James Argue’s take on it:
There are few things humans find more irresistible than the desire to modify our bodies. Okay, so maybe the pursuit of altered states of consciousness gives it a serious run for its money. But it’s pretty clear we are all a bit obsessed with sculpting our mortal clay.
What, your body hasn’t been tweaked? I doubt it. Do you have a piercing? A tattoo? If not, I bet you have some idea what you’d get if you got one. The same goes for cosmetic surgery — even if you’re opposed to it on principle, you probably have parts of your body you’d be tempted to reshape, given the opportunity. Even something as mundane as going on a diet or going to the gym are attempts at body modification.
(Also, if you are male, there’s a very good chance you had your first experience with body modification shortly after birth.)
Of course, there are those who don’t confine themselves to the more socially acceptable forms of pimping one’s hide. They might go for hardcore piercings and tats, scarification, branding, subdermal or transdermal implants, tongue splitting, eyeball tattooing, or, um, “pearling.”
Where do we get the urge to modify our bodies? Is the guy who decides to cover his entire face with tattoos acting on the same impulse as the girl who gets her shoulder blade inked with a discreet, tasteful design? Perhaps getting your tongue surgically forked is just an amped-up version of getting a tongue piercing. Sex reassignment surgery is about as extreme a body hack as one could get, but the medical establishment is generally sympathetic to transgendered individuals who want to pursue surgical reassignment. So where is the bright line between benign (or at least harmless) body modification and self-mutilation?
I suspect that, however liberal and open-minded and coolly unflappable you are, your instinct would be to draw the line somewhat short of voluntary amputation. A person who deliberately severs a perfectly healthy limb would not appear to be exercising the best of judgment, to put it mildly. One might reasonably assume that this person must have some kind of disorder that would account for such radically self-destructive behavior.
In fact, this disorder has a name — it’s called “Body Integrity Identity Disorder” (BIID). And according to the information at BIID.org (a site maintained by medical professionals with an interest in voluntary amputation), “[i]ndividuals with this condition experience the persistent desire to have their body physically match the idealized image they have of themselves.” But who doesn’t want their body to match the idealized image they have of themselves? That seems like the underlying motivation behind all types of body modification. It’s just that would-be amputees (they call themselves “wannabes”) have an idealized self-image that might seem grotesque and unfathomable.
No reputable doctor will amputate a healthy limb, so hardcore wannabes will sometimes attempt to take matters into their own hands by injuring the unwanted limb so grievously (burning it, shooting it, freezing it in dry ice, mutilating it with power tools, placing it in the path of an oncoming train, etc) that it must be amputated. Others will try to cope with their disorder by impersonating an amputee — folding back their leg and binding it, for instance.
What causes someone to become so alienated from their own body? Well, that’s one of the main concerns of Removable Parts, so you’ll have to let the characters who inhabit the piece tell you their own stories. But as they confess themselves to you, perhaps you will feel the faint glimmer of recognition. I mean, have you ever wanted something that you knew wasn’t good for you? Have you ever felt uncomfortable in your own skin, like your mind had colonized a body that wasn’t rightly yours? Have you ever felt like something is deeply wrong, but for some reason no one else is able to see it, and they all keep reassuring you that it’s perfectly fine even though you know it’s not? Have you ever felt that your whole life would be transformed for the better if you could just change one little thing?
Removable Parts might ask you to empathize with the plight of wannabe amputees, but it’s hardly a polemic or a piece of agitprop. While the production includes touches of vaudeville and cabaret, it’s in no way glib or campy. There is irony, yes, but it’s the subtle irony of self-delusion and cognitive dissonance, not the cauterizing “irony” of the terminally hip. Thoughts of involuntary amputees, especially those left in the wake of war, loom unavoidably in the background. The show is very funny, but it’s not a freakshow — or at least, no more so than anything else that puts our foibles under the microscope. Composer/lyricist/performer Corey Dargel describes the tone of the piece as one of “skeptical irreverence,” which sounds about right. His characters are fully realized human beings, which means they can be as duplicitous, manipulative, self-involved, equivocal, and unreliable as you or me. And those parts of us are not so easily removed.