A few months ago, Ceaseless Fun invited Los Angeles to explore loss with AGNOSIA, the first in a series of three productions that make-up their season of THE OUTLINE OF A HUMAN.
Now, director Derek Spencer is tackling part two of this saga with THEY WHO SAW THE DEEP. The show is a loose adaptation of the world’s oldest great work of literature: The Epic of Gilgamesh.
While the poem tells the story of one man’s search for companionship, knowledge, and immortality, this show reimagines the world of this poem as one in which everyone is their own Gilgamesh at the center of their own epic. The production employs elements of literary collage, immersive theater, physical theater, and song to interrogate the individual’s relationship to community, mortality, and legacy.
The version of Gilgamesh we read today has been assembled, retold, deconstructed and processed through multiple languages, over thousands of years, by many poets, and in various historical contexts. THEY WHO SAW THE DEEP leans into the pluralistic and fractal features of the epic. It processes an already processed text again, pluralizing the protagonist and asking the audience to consider multiple perspectives and multiple answers to the questions we all ask ourselves.
The show asks, if everyone is their own Gilgamesh at the center of their own story, how can we build community? How can we conceive of our own mortality? How can we archive our own stories? How can we see the deep?
I am intrigued by this!
Also, we know with so much going on, immersive theater can become an expensive hobby. Ceaseless Fun is doing something to help with that. For the first time, they will be providing a limited amount of “ income accessibility” tickets alongside our general ticket options. These tickets are available to anyone who feels that they are unable to afford a general admission ticket but would still like to attend the performance. These tickets do not require any documentation or verification to purchase, and holders will experience the show just as any general ticket holder would. Honestly, this is an incredibly sweet gesture of them, as I know plenty of people who wish to explore shows, but it just isn’t economically feasible to do so. Kudos to Ceaseless Fun for this!
THEY WHO SAW THE DEEP will take place in Koreatown from May 3 – May 20, 2018. The show will be about 90 minutes long.
Tickets are available at: twstd.bpt.me
