An unknown actress on movie star’s arm was how she began. An anonymous activist in a rubber gorilla mask is where she wound up. "UN/MASKED, Memoirs of a Guerrilla Girl On Tour" follows the surprising 25 year journey of a young artist swept off her feet by a rising star who carries her to a beach house in Malibu where he introduces her to Hollywood’s elite by day and knocks her head in by night. When OJ Simpson kills his former wife in Brentwood she hears a bell go off, awakening her angry, activist spirit. Forever an outsider she takes one step further into invisibility and becomes a Guerrilla Girl, a feminist activist who never appears in public without the guise of a rubber gorilla mask and who uses the name of a dead woman artist instead of her own. As a Guerrilla Girl Aphra Behn, she creates comedic art and theatre that successfully blasts the blatant sexism of the theatre world while proving feminists are funny at the same time.
That two stories – that of a young victim of domestic violence at the hands of a successful actor and that of an artist so fed up with sexism in the theatre world that she puts on a gorilla mask and takes the name of a dead woman artist in order to get attention – have been lived by one and the same person is compelling. How did she make the leap from a silent observer to an activist changer? This is the memoir of a woman turned survivor turned radical feminist who takes off her masks and, by merging her identities, reveals all. NOTE: UN/MASKED contains plays within the memoir.
"I loved this book by a woman with dreams that don't get realized but she makes her life work, no matter what, and tells her story with such honesty and clarity. An incredible achievement. It is unique, original and Donna Kaz is what Arthur Penn would say, somethin’ else.” —Estelle Parsons, Oscar winning actress