The Chair After Its Method of Implementation

A play in one act by Phillip Birch

Two performances at Cleopatra's Greenpoint:

12/16/11 at 8pm AND 12/17/11 at 7pm

first come first seated, please arrive early

This is a dialogue on the history of the Western Worlds regression to spirituality in the face of new technological epochs. The War of Currents serves as the framework within which the struggle is articulated. The relationship between the dialogue's primary characters, the followers of Vulcan and the followers of Mammon, serve to reduce historical events to a binary system. Through this shifting opposition, the actants within the narrative are exposed. In the eye of the Industrial Revolution, the necessity of spirituality was born. From this starting point we return to the era of Biopower, of touchscreen phones and GPS; to the future and the years of corporate oligarchy, of videophonic telephones, meat tablets and robot hearts. The initial antithesis of these developents is the reawakening of the spirit. But the opposition between technology and spirituality rings false – both have been instrumentalized to reify existing class structures and indemnify the oligarchy, regardless of what form it takes.

A dualism exists between the voice M and A Man, our more or less visible agents within this drama. A solipsistic reflexivity exists in the space between these actors, a self-othering continual circle. The feeling of limitlessness or the oceanic helps us to conceptualize (perhaps falsely) how the universals work and specifically how the particulars function. The voice of M is mediated through technology, never having once been voiced by a human being. M is linked to the Man through past and future tenses. The Man serves as a stand-in, a simulacrum for our upcoming Days of Future Past. Seven scarves will tie this Man to a Chair.