Gertrude Stein Experiment

On multiple occasions, when giving feedback on my work, a professor said “I kept getting ahead of it. It was the opposite of my experience with Gertrude Stein whose work is impossible to get ahead of.’ After the 2nd or 3rd time receiving this note, I began to read Gertrude Stein’s plays, and indeed, I was not able to get ahead of it - the text asked me to stay in a state of constant presence. I gathered my favorite Stein texts, and tried simply to understand how this text could exist in both space and time. Eventually we found a structure to house the text in, and it became a semi-durational, theme and variation-esque piece. The experiment led to lots of questions about presence in theatre, and became an avenue for further development of ideas about ‘formal’ theatre, and manipulation of time from earlier experiments.

Performed in April of 2021 with Samy Cordero, Cameron O’Neil, Jack Kalan, and Zoe Knutsen. Video available.