In-Version Ensemble to Present TWO FOR ONE at The Tank's LimeFest
The performance will take place on August 9th.
in-version ensemble will present Two for One, a multimedia blackbox theatrical experience making its New York premiere at The Tank's LimeFest on August 9th, after a critically acclaimed workshop production at the Apartment Project Berlin. This experimental production draws audiences into a poetic, intimate world of tension, lingering trauma, and the residues of love.
Two for One explores maternal bonds and entanglement in post-war Germany through a haunting, multimedia performance. As memories spin into an intertwining, spiraling spider web, the audience is invited to witness the final moment between mother and daughter. They confront the ugly side of motherhood and womanhood silenced by society: the internalized misogyny, the rage, the overwhelming labor of nurturing.
Abandoning conventional plot structures, Two for One unfolds in compressed time and overlapping spaces. Playwright Mala Emde distills incisive commentary into poetic fragments that trace the fractured relationship between a dying mother - ONE: jealous, tenderly controlling, a migrant - and her daughter - TWO: accusatory, mildly cynical, a scholar.
Directors Jane Su and Cerulean Long craft an immersive, sensory-stimulating experience, inviting the audience to piece together this complex bond through tangled physicality choreographed by Jillian Garibaldi, evocative visual symbols in the set and props designed by Siyin Yan, and spidery projections by Jane Su herself. With unique staging and split projection screens, the actors' bodies intertwine with the spider web, coexisting and gnawing at one another within a multimedia site of memory. The haunting, lyrical sound design and composition by Cece Zhang, along with visionary lighting by Cassie Aretsky, draw the audience into a world of birth, death, and the liminality in between - not as observers, but as participants, trying to break the same cycle, undo the same knot, and exhale the same grief and longing.
This approach resonated powerfully in the Berlin gallery space, where art journalist Ziwei Chen described the experience of the play as feeling "engrossed by the many small spiders encaged in a vitrine". Observing the scene - "the child sitting close to the audience, facing away from her mother, seemingly engrossed by the many small spiders encaged in a vitrine on the table" - Chen praised Jane's vision as "savvy with video projection and rich in expressive potential."
Will the mother ever let go? Can the daughter ever break free? "Women can't master the other, but to give master to themselves." She screams - out of pleasure, out of caprice. Two for One invites audiences into a collective space for catharsis and healing - a journey to explore the complex interplay between maternal bond and generational trauma, the nuances of female identity, and, above all, the enduring possibility of liberation.
Performance Details
Time & Dates: Saturday, August 9th at 9:30pm
Venue: The Tank
Address: 312 W 36th St, New York, NY 10018
Tickets: Available through The Tank NYC ($20/$30/$40)
Runtime: 40 minutes without intermission
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