dis-CON-tent

 

This ten-minute experimental play explores the relationship between form and meaning.  As the play opens, the Writer defends her/his work against the critiques of two (or more) androgynous Tormentors.  They charge that the Writer’s words actually say little in the way of “content,” but the play’s blocking should demonstrate the “meaning” of their critiques, even when the words spoken draw upon slang and nonsense.

 

As the blocking aims to demonstrate that meaning can arise out of form, a Ghost joins the Writer and Tormentors onstage, reminding the Writer that she/he is dispossessed from the written word as soon as it is written on paper.  The Writer must defend the writing in the living world of the social, while simultaneously facing the existential possibility that death itself shadows the finished written product.

 

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Play Structure:

1 Act:  15-minute play

Cast size:

4+

 

Gender:

2 either gender, 2 androgynous

Period:

The infinite time of empty content.

Location:

The void.

Set:

A mostly bare stage. Any props appropriate to writing, books, puppets, or “coolness” may be used at will.