About the Project
San Francisco-based Dark Porch Theatre is exploring the possibility of bringing its latest experimental theatre work TUTOR: enter the exclave to the Hollywood Fringe. Any guidance, tips, or assistance would be deeply appreciated!
The plot of the piece is partially inspired by JMR Lenz’s Der Hofmeister (1774), and is simple: A young, eager-to-please fop becomes tutor to a rural, aristocratic family with a lovesick daughter and a wild son. But soon, in our play, the textures become more complex. As the tutor frantically navigates his new surroundings, he comes to realize a more substantial, more troubling problem with it all: the family appears to live-literally-in the past.
This highly experimental work explores the idea of the exclave–a detached part of a whole, such as a province of a country that’s physically separated from the motherland–as a way of addressing contemporary experiences of cultural isolation and connection. How are we part of the places, groups, and times with which we identify? Are we components of cultures, nations, things we cannot touch?
Developed with a four-member ensemble of performers, TUTOR employs composed texts, improvisation, an original electroacoustic musical score, and video projection.
During its first workshop run, the piece garnered critical acclaim.
In an ecstatic feature, Examiner.com writes:
“…I loved this production. It is funny, thought provoking, staggeringly original, full of experimentation and theatrical verve…Utilizing video, an excellent original score, a puppet for one of the characters, skillfully executed slapstick, masks, dance, sound effects, experimental lighting, alienation effects ala Brecht (one character announces and briefly narrates each episode, using a hand held microphone), the ensemble creates an evening of theatre that is a funny, shocking assault on sense and sensibility that leaves us intrigued, entertained and breathless if somewhat discombobulated. (Wouldn’t an exclave of any sort be discombobulated?)…”
And the San Francisco Bay Guardian devoted a feature review and starred listing to TUTOR, writing:
“…Schwartz latches onto an intriguing aspect of this grim goodtime story — which he adapts from his own translation of Sturm und Drang–school writer J.M.R. Lenz’s 1774 play, Der Hofmeister — namely the theme flagged by the “exclave” in the title, which refers to an isolated region detached from the mainland but nevertheless a part of the same country. Attached yet apart proves an apt description of each character’s condition as well as of the family unit itself, which is seemingly lost in time.”
Production Team
