ABOUT THE PLAY
There are many different contexts for this play that help us understand it.
Our team has determined a few:
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Wars
Magical realism
Theatrical form
Time
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Explore this page to learn more about the contexts for our production
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WHERE IT ALL HAPPENS
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Below is information on each of the wars within the play - click through to learn more!
SPain
Vietnam
This war took place all over the country as well as in Cambodia and Laos between 1955 and 1975 and pitted the communist government of North Vietnam against South Vietnam and their principal ally the United States.
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Scene 8 "Intimidation" takes place in a prison building where prisoners and detainers were tortured and treated inhumanely.
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Tama, Mario. The New York Times, 2011
Though there is no known war that took place between Spain and France in the late 19th century, we believe that Zinnie Harris fabricated this conflict as a way to showcase how farmhands and regular people are suddenly thrown into war untrained and ill-prepared, forced to face reality and make difficult decisions.
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Scene 1 "Pitchforks" takes place in a village in Northern Spain.
Living in the Trenches - Imperial War Musem
Plane dropping a Nepalm bomb - El-Amin, Salimah and Lucas B Frank. The Vietnam War: an Intimate History.
WWI
This was a global war that originated in Europe and lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918.
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Scene 2 "Smoke", 3 "Hunger", 4 "Bullets and barbed wire", 5 "Gas" and 6 "Accusation" all take place in different parts of France throughout this time; showcasing specific areas such as "no mans land"
IRAQ
This war began in 2003 under the Bush administration when the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government of Suddhain Hussain on the basis that he held weapons of mass destruction and had been conniving with al-Qaeda.
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Scene 9 "Desecration" takes place in the abandoned oilfields of the desserts of Iraq after American troops have left.
Antique Spanish Painting from the 19th century
Jews loading onto trains in Warsaw during the German occupation - War History Online
Magical REalism
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... a literary or artistic genre in which realistic narrative and naturalistic techniques are combined with surreal elements of dream or fantasy.
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The ambiguous nature of the Girl is well rendered by magic realism, a device that allows us to see deeper into the Girls psychic wounds but also the wounds of those that use her as a scapegoat/savior figure.
Theatrical Form
Two theatrical forms—Noh Theatre and Epic Theatre influence the play. Both of these forms embrace a formal and highly theatrical presentation.
time
Time does not necessarily move in a linear fashion. The play is episodic, meaning that each scene has its own story, takes place in its own time and place, and doesn’t directly connect with the scene before it. The characters travel through space and time, finding themselves in different periods of war around the world. In our production we will work to enhance the unusual physics of the play that exposes the mutability of time and place.