#OOTW2022

Elena Sanz & Carly Fernández. Photograph by Terry Cripps.

Elena Sanz, Carly Fernández & Ángel López-Silva. Photograph by Terry Cripps.

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WANTED A PILLBOX, ENDED UP WITH A PLASTIC BAG

by Daniel Dannery (Venezuela), translated by Mary Ann Vargas

Generating relationships online … it’s child’s play.

Digital society is driven by ambivalence and anxiety. Worlds we strive to belong to escape us, like water slipping through our fingers. Worlds made of pills, of tracks and plastic bags. Worlds of labels, stilettos and shopping trolleys; of suicides and collectives. A metaverse.

If ambivalence is a problem affecting the psyche, are we a sick society? It may be that ambivalence, that open door to thousands of other doors, has generated, is generating, an acute fear of the future. Too many open doors, too many pending decisions to be made or discarded. And yet, if this multiverse is a range of infinite universes, why the anxiety? We know that someone else, just like me, is living the life I’m not living. And this is happening because social media is generating the market of imagery that I’m consuming. Will the desire to live the life someone else is living, in an alternate universe, generate anxiety?

wanted a pillbox, ended up with a plastic bag dares to make tangible the disembodied quest for connection experienced by a global community of anonymous online users. Although written in Caracas in pre-pandemic times (2018), the piece’s explosive quality expands in translation, generating a myriad of scenarios, encounters, and disencouters. Multilingual interactions – linguistic, performative, experiential – written, and translated, to come to life on stage, in complicity with the audience.

· About the author Daniel Dannery
· About the translator Mary Ann Vargas

Creative Team

Director

Mary Ann Vargas

Cast

Carly Fernandez
Ángel López-Silva
Elena Sanz