The Eli and Edythe Broad Stage in Santa Monica presents Our Country co-created by Becca Wolff and Annie Saunders, and directed by Becca Wolff with original writing by Saunders and devising by the company. Our Country will be performed on Saturday, November 9 at 4pm and 8pm, and Sunday, November 10 at 2pm.
Inspired by Sophocles' Antigone and origin stories from the American frontier, Our Country is set in California's marijuana country, our still-Wild West. Based on recorded conversations between Saunders and her younger brother, this autobiographical creation is a genre-bending work, steeped in childhood memories and mythologies from Ancient Greece, recalling a time when we were young - as siblings, as a nation and as a democratic system - and asking how far we have really come. This category-defying piece interweaves found text sources, original writing, verbatim and physical theatre and a scenic coup-de-theatre that envelops the audience (literally and figuratively).
Previous presentations include an award-winning run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival at Summerhall, Sibiu Festival, Romania, with Aurora Nova, Incoming Series at Under the Radar Festival at
The Public Theater, New York, as part of the Devised Theater Working Group, a workshop production as The Antigone Project at Getty Villa and developmental workshops at the SF Playhouse and crucial development support from piece by piece productions.
Of the acclaimed Edinburgh Festival presentation, The Stage says, "Our Country is a powerful, intelligent show in which the mythic and modern Americas meet head-on in an examination of a complex sibling relationship. The performers recreate siblings' conversations, arguments and childhood play with dreamlike, gauzy memory imprecision. While much is spoken, the charged movement sequences demonstrate how intertwined the two are - moving in violent and conflicted ways but always returning to each other. The performers generate a startling intimacy as they push and pull at each other's recollections and wounds."
This is the first collaboration between Wolff, co-founder of Tilted Field Productions, who explores the intersection of the theatrical and the confessional, collaborating with virtuosic performer-creators to explore deeply personal material in bold new ways, and Saunders, LA-based creator and live artist who founded the acclaimed site-specific company Wilderness (The Day Shall Declare It) and works as a core collaborator with Lars Jan's experimental performance and
Art Lab Early Morning Opera (Holoscenes, The Institute of Memory, Abacus).
Other collaborators on the project include performer Jesse Saler of Poor Dog Group, movement director
Jess Williams of Frantic Assembly, sound design team comprised of award winning and Emmy-nominated Jackie Zhou and James Ard, fights by Edgar Landa, illusions by Christian Cagigal, costumes by
Melissa Trn and stage design by multi-award winners Nina Caussa and
Jiyoun Chang , scenic and lighting respectively.
Tickets are now on sale at
www.thebroadstage.org or by calling 310.434.3200. Theatre at The Broad Stage made possible in part by generous gifts from Bill & Laurie Benenson and Susan Stockel.
Photo by Jonathan Potter
