Not a Jealous Bone

1987, 10:24 min, color, sound

A magical bone that promises eternal life propels the story of Not a Jealous Bone, a post-Freudian fairy tale in the guise of a musical narrative. An eighty-two-year-old woman in search of her mother and a beautiful young woman struggle over the life-extending magic bone. Condit holds an unflinching mirror to subconscious fears of mortality and the cultural stigma of aging for women, as she manifests dark fantasies of physical deterioration and the primal conflicts between mother and daughter. Tongue-in-cheek candor and ironic pop references are tempered with poignancy. Accompanied by a woman's disarming musical narration, this whimsical psychological melodrama of vanity, jealousy and loss unmasks the trauma of the aging body, and posits a resolution in a reassertion of the female self.

Music: Stephen Vogel. Vocalist: Jennifer Cochran. With: Sophie Finson Wohl, Jill Sands. Massacre Scene: Cleveland State Dance Co.