incubator
projects
the country
by martin crimp
"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.
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.
"i await the devil's coming" is based on the 1901 memoir by 19-year-old mary maclane: a bisexual, lonely, potentially-suicidal, self-anointed genius whose words pierce through the century with shocking relevance.
i await the devil’s coming
by mary maclane
mary maclane’s text is muscular, bold, brave, and astounding almost for any time, but especially given she wrote it as a 19-year-old in montana, in 1901. (the book was so provocative in her time, that it was banned.) she resists naming her work a journal, but chooses the term Portrayal for this intimate expose(é) of her mind, heart, and body. yes, she claims being in love with the devil. yes, she claims being in love with her one-time poetry teacher, miss corbin. yes, she wails with a recognizable ache of a teenager - and yet her loneliness, her ego, her sense of alienation and disgust with society startlingly mirrors today’s gen z/gen alpha teens. but mary cries out for us all to listen to the genius of that teenage rant - and if we really listen, we just might find a way towards understanding. ours is a work for 5-9 actors, 5-9 marys, together and apart, individually and as one.