GREENHOUSE, Interactive Adaptation of O Alienista, to Open at Off the Lane's Meaux Space
Performances will run September 17-19.
The Elif Collective and Pop Up! Productions will present Greenhouse an interactive theater adaptation of Machado de Assis's novella O Alienista, at Off the Lane's Meaux Space in Chelsea September 17-19.
Greenhouse is an interactive theater adaptation of Machado de Assis's novella "O Alienista." An elite doctor opens the first insane asylum in colonial Brazil, and keeps widening his definition of madness until almost the whole town is locked inside. This Brazilian classic, devised by an American team with Brazilian artists, asks: as public institutions crumble, who can you trust, if anyone?
As the figureheads of scientific progress, religion, old-school politics, and leftist revolution all battle for influence, audience members must make their own decisions-voting, chanting, and perhaps even rebelling-to determine which individuals should be in power next.
Director Shayan Hooshmand shares 'I read O Alienista in my college Latin American literature course, and it was by far and away my favorite piece. The story features all these satirical twists that skewer a leader's reliance on ideology and ego, which felt especially relevant then (as it does today).'
'More than that, the text was inherently theatrical: the narrator, a contemporary of de Assis, stumbles around telling the story as he draws on various accounts of 'chroniclers' from a hundred years past. Disagreements abound - it's hard to assess which perspectives in the story are founded in truth and which are fake news! I felt that giving a body and voice to these perspectives on stage would drive the satire of O Alienista even further,' states Hooshmand.
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