SENSE (by Halo Rossetti, with costumes by Ala Dehghan) is an eco-performance about a permacultural intentional community, based in a homestead in New York, that receives and adapts to an invading family of primal scream therapists. It is also a play about how to live in the Anthropocene, where civilization as we-know-it must change-or-die as the old way collapses.
The following is documentation of a staged reading of SENSE at "Sense: Dimensions of Radical Ecology," a day of ecoperformance, lectures, workshops, and installations curated and organized by Eli Epstein-Deutsch at La Plaza Cultural, during the 5th annual LUNGS Loisaida United Neighborhood Gardens Festival, a large-scale civic event activating all of the community gardens throughout the Lower East Side.
COSTUMING:
Each character primarily wears clothes and interacts with objects of a particular color.
Costume notes are as follows:
CHRIS:
Blue (looks like they are in a band)
DIANA: Purple (Reclaiming-style witch look: long, flowy skirts; lots of necklaces; elegant, feminine dark tops)
REX: Brown (dresses like a lumberjack bro; sometimes wears a shirt that says "Neurodiversity")
ANGER:
Red (Gloria Allred-type femme with all red clothing)
EUNICE, EVE and ESTHER:
Black (with red accessories)
SARAH:
Green with gold & brown highlights (wood-nymph femme)
SCOTT: Pink (Bushwick hipster faggy couture)
ANNIE: Orange (yoga-femme; orange slouchy pants and tank tops, with or without bra)
HOUSE GHOSTS:
All-white, plain outfits: Terrence Koh-inspired Bushwick performance artist vibe, with white swimming caps or pulled down over half of their faces, with decorated, glittered, collaged eye-holes)
Every object and prop of that color "belongs" to that person's territory, in a way, and should be treated as such in the staging and blocking, i.e. when a person touches another person's objects. . . that means something.
SET:
The set is a deconstructed version of a homestead. All of the play is set within the living room of a house. The audience sits around the edge of the stage area, which is circular with bisecting through-ways. There are movable walls—frames fitted with giant, partially collaged gels—that the characters can wheel or carry around. There are also objects onstage that can be activated by the characters at any time: fruit to be peeled and chopped, water to be drunk or knocked over, cushions to be arranged, flowers to be split into vases, etc. Some auxiliary actions are always performed to enliven the main action in any one scene.
SARAH:
(under duress, breaking the tension) Can we just start, please?
SCOTT:
YES please.
DIANA:
And Alyssa and Jen are...
SARAH:
On a two-day tantra retreat.
REX:
Fuck!
DIANA:
Who's chairing this meeting?
ANNIE:
Me. (looks at SCOTT) You're scribing right?
SCOTT:
I...could...
ANNIE:
(to SCOTT, under her breath) Empower me.
SCOTT:
Sure! I'll scribe. (pulls out his iPhone)
DIANA:
Not on that.
SCOTT: Ugh—why do we even have that rule.
DIANA: Guideline.