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Our American datasphere is littered with deities and demi-gods - individuals whose images have been replicated, reconstructed and re-iterated until they comprise a neo-Olympian pantheon of Fame. In this increasingly adolescent and Narcissistic culture, to whom do we look to discover our own dreams, fears, hopes, beliefs … and the context for our lives?
Synaesthetic Theatre explores this question by delving into the fragmented mind of a post-modern Everyman, a media junkie like so many of our generation, raised on the boob of the Tube. Narcissus gazes into the water/the silver screen, lured by the beautiful illusions, trapped by his inability to embraced his beloved. Echo, his would-be lover and tormentor, is forced to compete for his attention against in a rigged race of larger-than-life beauty, intensity and style. Can she free him from his fatal trance? And if she succeeds in breaking the spell, will he at last return her love?
"If every age has its disorder -- hysteria in Freud's Vienna, addiction in the eighties, depression
in the nineties -- ours seems to be the age of Narcissism. According to the encyclopedia of mental disorders
… someone suffering from narcissism feels special, entitled, arrogant; lacks empathy; is preoccupied with fantasies
of success; and is exploitative. Which pretty much describes everyone I know …" (Rebecca Johnson, Vogue
October 2002)
The Ensemble of five actors moves fluidly through various famous personas and moments, mixing messages and metaphors as in a dream. A four person camera and set crew supports the performers, capturing every moment from multiple perspectives which are then projected -- often simultaneously. A hypnotic soundscape also contributes to the overall sensation of drifting in a sea of sound bytes, reflections and fragmented images -- a sea in which our disassociated hero may well drown. Deconstructed scenes from films you thought you knew provide the interior language with which Narcissus will define himself, once and for all. Icon runs 1 hour and 15 minutes with no intermission.
Click here for the full list of movies sampled in Icon.
Click here to learn more about the myth of Narcissus and Echo.
Click here to view show photographs, design sketches and more.
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