Dear Fee,
I’m writing with deep gratitude that this postcards project prompted me to see Emotion/Truth. I don’t remember what exactly I requested when I was being matched with a performance to write about, but I know I asked to see some weird stuff, something not quite like anything I’d seen before. Boy, did your piece deliver in all of the best ways. From the opening scene, when a being straight out of “Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared” crushed paper mache hands, straight through to the end, when the audience was invited to join the performers’ reveling in ambiguity, I was delighted by the originality and heart of this work.
The story that emerged over the course of this piece– that of an interviewer seeking to understand other people’s relationships with love and the end of the world– felt very engaging and relatable. In the first scene, when they spoke to a jobseeker who knows themself to be “destined for a nine-to-five,” I saw the interviewer as the one with all the power, as an emissary of opaque, unfeeling institutions and systems. Very quickly, though, I realized that this was something else, someone who was seeking out human connection, and seemed almost scared when they found it.
By the next interview, I understood that actually this interviewer was our protagonist; they operated from a lack of power, a fear about what the end of the world means and how to cope with being a part of the machine hastening it. This was an avatar of the audience, seeking a way to live and love in alignment with ourselves. Upon reaching the end of the piece, though, I had a thoroughly new understanding of the interviewer; they weren’t helpless at all, but in fact the most empowered person amongst us. They reached for love, even when they were unsure what it looked like, even when they were scared of it. What a compelling vision for life in this troubling chapter of our world. I felt that I could be more like this interviewer, moving with intentionality towards love through curiosity.
What I felt most of all throughout this piece was held. We’re in a kind of end times; what kind exactly remains to be seen, but it’s clear that big changes to the status quo are on the horizon no matter what. The sureness with which your performers moved and spoke, the gorgeous text, the inarticulable but sweet moments, the call to action at the end. I felt like I was being gently parented: “Hey, this is scary and uncomfortable and sad, and I’m here with you. At some point, we’re gonna need to get up and move through it.” The taking of an audience member’s hand as the last beat of the show, that prompt to meet this moment even if we don’t know quite how yet, was simple but deeply stirring. Thank you for this work; I suspect it will be with me a long time.
Warmly,
Jack
Fee Pelz-Sharpe is the co-writer and co-director of Emotion/Truth, with Zoe Nadig. Their collaboration is known as Double Sag Collective. The show played Sept 20-21st at Sawubona Creativity Project.
Jack McManus is the creator/performer of Traffic Cam. The show has a final performance on Sept 28th at the Icebox.
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