Intimate Relay: NOTES ABOUT CHARACTERS, THEMES & SETTING

In various West African traditions, biological twins have a sacred/profane mystique. In Yorubaland in particular, they are considered magical and given special names, possessing a specific social function akin to the ‘alchemical union of opposites’ in Western Hermetic traditions… these varying facets of twinship are themes explored in this play. The piece also culls from A more sinister ...

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 ...

Surge: A Tale of Sleeping Beauty (from Grimm’s Weimar Republic)

DRAMATIS PERSONAE ANGEL/ BELLA GIRL PARTY GUESTS BELLA AT 16/ YOUNGER MAXINE MAXINE CARA DOCTOR 6 YOUNG MEN SCENES: A CHILD’S BEDROOM; A LIVING ROOM; A LABORATORY; A SUSPENDED ANIMATION TANK A child sleeps in the foreground,. An angelic being, completely burnished gold with lengthy gold braids and golden vestments appears beside the sleeping GIRL. ANGEL Wake up little one Wake up It’s time ...

THE EMISSARY

A New Year’s greeting I created for Featurezoo: 2013: THE EMISSARY from FEATUREZOO on Vimeo. The constellation, first detected by Greek stargazers in 432 B.C., is relegated to the undertow of human consciousness, making fleeting appearances in the slipstream of culture and history… until now. What is The Emissary? A messenger of what—human transcendence? A keening supra-intelligence ...

Think Different: New York Video Fest Spans Innovation and Old Hat

(Originally published in indieWIRE/ 8.7.00)   As New York Video Festival 2000 commenced, the MacWorld Expo at the Javits Centerfolded. The Macintosh Mantra “Think Different” was everywhere and reiterated in Armond White‘s annual Video Fest look at popular culture on July 24, this year titled “Coded Language.” White screened and discussed ...

Carl Hancock Rux: The Exalted

Teaser I created for Carl Hancock Rux’ UCLA reading of his novel, ‘The Exalted’. Teaser: Carl Hancock Rux / The Exalted (long version) from FEATUREZOO on Vimeo. Teaser for award winning writer / performer, Carl Hancock Rux, reading excerpts from his new novel “The Exalted” a poetic meditation on heritage, love and the willpower to overcome atrocity. Accompanied ...

Characters from Christabel

The Characters: Christabel, our heroine Lovely, willful and impulsive, Christabel at seventeen, is born to privilege and excess and slated for a good marriage. Given her background, she is something of a brat (a winsome one at that)—she however possesses a curious mind, as well as yearning for adventure. Confronted with the extreme turn of events—trapped in The Enchanted Forest that was ...

Futuresign: An excerpt

1.1 We hear the voice of SIBYL over an elaborate montage of antiquarian maps, royal insignia and portraiture: SIBYL (voice over): It is an unspecified future, a world which very much resembles fin de siecle Europe at the uncertain borders of the twentieth century… The balance of power is generated by tensions between the Dark Continent, Africa and the infightings of European states. The ...

Themes and settings for Christabel

Strongly influenced by the German Romanticists, Samuel Taylor Coleridge began Christabel with the intention of creating a Christian morality piece. He failed. The first part of this poem is a feverish gothic vampire narrative with heavy lesbian overtones, so powerful that the ‘good over evil’ to come, never got written. It was too problematic for the poet to finish. Using the existing ...

A Few Words About Grimm’s Weimar Republic…

This body of work grew out of a commission by a Brooklyn-based theater company, White Bird Productions. Five different playwrights were asked to adapt one Grimm’s fairytale each—to modern day Brooklyn—to be presented as an evening of family theater. I stumbled a bit before hitting the appropriate note: like many, I am a fairy tale aficionado, but my attraction is to the darker themes. I came ...

Angelica excerpt from (The Sea of Lightning)

Session VII (from transcript) DR: Hello Otto. OTTO: I notice my new-found privileges have been revoked— DR: It’s nothing to do with me Otto. OTTO: No, that wouldn’t be your style. You just did nothing, right? Not so much as blip of protest from you— DR: Are you angry at me? OTTO: Let down more like it. We had established trust. DR: Please don’t feed my own words back to me; I’m aware of what ...
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