My play What She Knew, performed by Gabriele Schafer, opens this Wednesday night, 1 December, at manhattan theatre source, 177 Macdougal Street (between West 8th and Waverly Streets) in New York. There are only eight performances of this premiere theatre minima production, running Wednesday– Saturday at 8.00pm through Saturday 11 December. Tickets are $18.00 and available online through ovationtix or by telephone through the manhattan theatre source box office at 866.811.4111.
The play is described further at the theatre minima Web page for the production, but it may also be instructive to say what the play is not.
What She Knew is neither experimental nor avant-garde. Indeed, as a monologue it reaches back to the condition of theatre before the second character was introduced on the stage, and so it is unapologetically retrograde, quite suitable for the first formal production of a fledgling theatre company.
It is not explicitly a play for intellectuals, though they and others may find what they are looking for in it. Indeed, there is neither subtext nor irony; it is quite straight-forward.
The play is not a description or examination of contemporary culture or politics, though no doubt it is informed by both.
Nor is the play a lecture or instruction manual, not even a poem (YOU MUST HAVE YOUR STORY, Jocasta tells the audience early in the play, and she proceeds to tell it quite clearly).
The play does not deal with ends, but with origins. Though the play must have a beginning, middle and end, there is no resolution, and if anything the fifty-minute running time of the play describes one revolution around a circle of experience, which then circles round and round again with every repetition (those repetitions starting promptly at 8.00pm, with no late seating).
The play provides neither hope (the time for which is over) nor hysterical desperation (its contemporary wan replacement).
It is, quite modestly, a reminder of origins, first events that took place in the long distant and now unrecoverable past. It may also provide a clue as to a way of confronting the recognition of these tragic origins with courage.
As we completed the design last night, I must say that the playwright and director are grateful to their performer, Gabriele Schafer, and their designers, for serving this modest play so beautifully and elegantly to you. We are all looking forward to sharing it with you in just a few days.
NOTE: If you’ve read this far, you are encouraged to revisit Superfluities Redux later today, when you will be rewarded with a discount code.
