Intimate Relay: A Synopsis
The action is prefaced by a scientific myth: the story of the striped foal—
A group of scientists have a stallion copulate with a zebra. Nothing happens, a small matter of obstinate XY chromosomes and a difference in genetic structure. The stallion is sent home where he mates with a mare. A few months later the mare gives birth to a striped foal…
A young couple, Violet and Edgar find themselves plagued, haunted and beleaguered: ghostly phone rings, vanishing cigarettes—and unexplainable behavior between each other, almost as though they were being manipulated…
Unbeknownst to them, Lucretia, a mysterious Edwardian Lady, has been paying visits to two masked children in the garden—twins by the name of Britannicus and Octavia. Lucretia has furnished the two little imps with computer games with which they wreak havoc on Violet and Edgar’s relationship.
Everything changes when the Dandies-next-Door, Viktor and Rolf, come over for tea. They bring with them the regal Grande Brigitte; the saturnine Baron Samedi; and the tricksterish Legsy—who is the bane of Lucretia’s existence.
In an impromptu séance, all is revealed: the twins are Violet and Edgar’s stillborn children; Lucretia is Edgar’s old flame—all of whom died six years earlier—Lucretia in a suicide—and it is her suicide note that has passed hands throughout the course of the play—morphing into other kinds of information and creating a general sense of unease. Confessions are in order and soon matters are righted—or are they?
A year later, we visit the couple in the midst of a soirée. The former party guests are all present and a new addition—a baby who looks suspiciously like Lucretia…
Perhaps an argument for the case of the striped foal?
Intimate Relay ©2004, 2013 onomé ekeh