Wednesday, March 01, 2006
What's so great about a Cowboy Monk suicide?
When we first started working on this piece we faced a very obvious cultural divide: we here in the West often find it just incomprehensible that suicide could be the desired and celebrated outcome. We often joked about how inappropriate our play would seem from you traditional American perspective. One of the biggest challenges was how do we find a bridge so that our audience will get on board with this journey towards suicide. Hence cowboys. We're used to their all-or-nothin' lifestyle.
In thinking of where this piece is going to go next, I feel like this changing of cultural perspective is where we can really dig in deeper. We were so worried in the last draft of creating that bridge so people can get on board with the story. What would happen if we formed a bridge so the audience could really get in touch with that perspective?
Here in the US we have such difficulty coping with death and dying. We simultaneoulsy place enormous weight on each individual life and ignore death when it actually occurs. We are at a complete loss when it comes to facing death, both individually and collectively. If we create a performance piece where for a moment we enter into an alternative way of viewing individual life and death, do we open up that discussion and start to build a means to deal with death in our own lives?
In thinking of where this piece is going to go next, I feel like this changing of cultural perspective is where we can really dig in deeper. We were so worried in the last draft of creating that bridge so people can get on board with the story. What would happen if we formed a bridge so the audience could really get in touch with that perspective?
Here in the US we have such difficulty coping with death and dying. We simultaneoulsy place enormous weight on each individual life and ignore death when it actually occurs. We are at a complete loss when it comes to facing death, both individually and collectively. If we create a performance piece where for a moment we enter into an alternative way of viewing individual life and death, do we open up that discussion and start to build a means to deal with death in our own lives?
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Interesting about the audience getting on board. In terms of understanding the story and what the characters wanted, I think we did make that clear. But I don't know that the audience was with us on their need to commit suicide, or that it was a positive choice. Is that what you mean here?
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