We Are Not These Hands

Rogue Machine Theatre Company do great work in Hollywood all year round. Their participation in the festival is to be welcomed, HFF is all the richer for it. We Are Not These Hands follows the desperate journey of two fifteen year old girls, Moth (Cecily Glouchevich) and Belly (Emily James), struggling to survive a world in ruin. In this dark, dystopian society filth is flavor, porn is incessant, and violence is the status quo. Their dream is to get “‘cross the river” to the capitalist society where Belly’s family lives and where a possible hope for survival exists. Spying through the window of a ramshackle internet cafe, they spot Leather (so dubbed because of the leather bag he carries), an outcast that has just moved from their paradis... full review

Playwright Sheila Callaghan is known for taking on dark subject matters and twisting them so much that they’re simultaneously so strange that they’re familiar - a modern rendition of Brecht’s verfremdungseffekt. In We Are Not These Hands she’s created a dark dystopian society where Capitalist is a dirty word, violence is a mode of expression and sex is the main commodity. This could be a dark and depressing play, however Callaghan uses two teenage girls with youthful exuberance and optimism to brighten this dark world. Moth (Cecily Glouchevich) and Belly (Emily James) spend most of their time sitting outside an internet cafe watching men look at porn when they spot Leather (so named because he carries a leather bag, a sign of his high e... full review