My main inspiration for this project is Genesis 22 of the Old Testament in which God, via the Angel of God, asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and then when he’s about to do it the Angel comes back and tells Abraham he’s just been punked and he doesn’t really have to kill his son. My project is a wild exploration of this story, the characters and their individual perspectives. As Duty, choice, obligation and guilt began to arise as major themes I drew heavily on the Old Testament but also on my personal experiences away at school in North Carolina, here in the city and growing up on the North Shore of Long Island. Lastly I was inspired by the principles of Just War theory and the war currently being waged in Afghanistan.
My process was long term, on-going and sporadic. I would go on wild research binges, saturating myself with any credible information on the Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Angels, God, Satan, Afghanistan, Christianity, Islam, soldiers, terrorists, counter-terrorism, Post-Traumatic stress, Tom Waits, Duty, obligation and guilt. At some point I turned all of this information into a play including Isaac, the Angel of God and Lucifer but this was not conducive to solo performance and I found myself stuck. After a visit from solo performance artist Kristen… , I was inspired. She had found herself in the same situation of having a multi-character play but needing a solo-performance piece and so she simply told the same story through the perspective of one character. I tried this out and it morphed into a sort of post-facto therapy, confession session with the Angel of God and seeing as it was already November I decided to stick with this concept and incessantly play with it. I allowed this character to be porous in order to grow, change, evolve and absorb any new aspects, ideas and perspectives that seemed necessary or appropriate. Throughout the process I have been concerned with where this story is going. Its conclusion was a constant source of anxiety until I realized that I don’t have to know how this story ends, I just have to get this character through seven minutes of it and make sure he says what he needs to in this chapter.
I chose Tom Waits as my virtual mentor. He proved to be an inspiring and liberating guide on this venture. His music, writing and performance are littered with cries of the oppressed and down trodden or those down on their luck. He can inhabit and explode the dark and filthy corners of life, humanity and existence as well as wrench hearts and illuminate beauty and I want to be able to do just that. Like Waits, I like to consider myself multi-disciplinary artist and sans time restraints, my piece would include sound and music performed on various instruments and percussion. Waits has helped me to straddle the line between “Glitter and Doom,” his latest album title.
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