Five ghosts who faced adversity in life will be homeless when the historic building they inhabit is demolished. Sarah Bernhardt, baptized Catholic, faced anti-Semitism in the 19th century for her Jewish heritage; Elizabeth Keckley, former slave and companion of Mrs.Lincoln, was subjected to racism during travels with the widow; Buffalo Bill, Indian fighter in his youth, mourned the death of his great friend Chief Sitting Bull; Marcel Duchamp created a controversial genre of visual art using found objects; Alice Lansen, accused thief, was a self-proclaimed baroness. Together, they look to a “living” lesbian couple to help them find new homes.
With the world premiere of The Plague (A Play for Everyone and Nobody) Katharsis Performance Project presents a poetic journey inspired by Anatolian limerick patterns, while focusing on the physical and verbal effects of rationality on human beings, whose minds and bodies are forced to be separated.
A watchman, after guarding the houses of quarantined plague victims during the Black Death, comes from the dusty path of history to tell us about the plague of reason. The hidden truth this messenger reveals will re-invigorate our gradually petrifying bodies, which are enslaved by callused 'why' questions, and our paralyzed limbs, which are imprisoned in our unresponsive minds. The verbs will get away from echoing in the abyss and re-activate their own subjects.
Performances by E. James Ford, Steven Carlino, Cesare Papetti, Timothy R. Pickerill, Benjamin Stuber
Watch A PROLOGUE for The Plague
"As Directed" written and performed by Dawn Sofia, about a woman in crisis, torn between her loyalties and her sense of ethics, confronted by the stresses of modern technology.