Rita Farr / Elasti-Woman

Once a glamorous 1950s film star, Rita Farr now lives in seclusion, her body prone to grotesque stretching and dissolving into a shapeless blob whenever her emotions slip out of control. She clings to old habits of poise and vanity, rehearsing manners and elocution as if performance can hold her together, terrified of what she becomes underneath.

April Bowlby plays Rita's fading-starlet composure as both armor and tragedy, letting flickers of self-loathing and loneliness show beneath the practiced smile. The writing uses her literal loss of form as a sharp metaphor for identity crumbling under fame's demands, and Bowlby finds real pathos in someone trying so hard to hold her shape.