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the country
by martin crimp
we collectively chose Martin Crimp’s “The Country” for its spare yet deeply-layered language and its interrogation into addiction, betrayal, and the search for connection. the play is written for a familiar husband/wife/affair trio, yet we’ve opened it up to a cast of 9: essentially three casts that perform at times simultaneously, at times with one trio taking the foreground. while conventional theatre processes tend to start with ideas birthed at “table work” and hearty discussion - we work collectively through physical research, and allow the bodies in space to carve out images and ideas about how these characters interact and what is being “said” within the text. what results is a wholly visceral, raw, and intimate excavation of the play and the humans who live in its dark, vulnerable world.
"the country" is written as a 3-character relationship drama by english playwright martin crimp, that we've fractal-ed into a 9-character piece on betrayal, sexuality, and addiction.
everyMary is a highly-physical performance piece crafted from teenager mary maclane's 1901 journal, "i await the devil's coming". all the performers play mary, but they're also not exactly mary. mary is more of an "everyteen" if you will, whose cries of loneliness, self-proclaimed genius, and disgust feel like they could have been written in 2026.
in embodying her shocking, raw, and intimate writings we unpack a world of angst, passion, boredom, queerness, suicidal fantasies, and obsession with - yes - the devil. we lift up mary's voice (scandalous in her times), but also draw parallels to the youth culture of today. it's like we're saying, "we see you, teenagers. we hear you. and yes, this is fucked." in this way, the piece becomes a real-time love letter to teens, and to ALL of our long-ignored teenage selves... and invites audiences to finally listen to the wisdoms of youth.
