INSOMNIA/INSEXTON
This is a multi-media music theatre project that I developed in the summer of 2006, based on the poetry and life of the American poet Anne Sexton (1928-1974). InSomnia/InSexton was first performed as part of HERE's American Living Room Festival of New Works, produced at New York's 3LD Art & Technology Center.
I took excerpts from her poetry and collected letters (written to various friends, family members and colleagues), which underscore some of her main themes: psychiatry/hospitalization; addiction; beauty; writing, contemplation of death, incest, and the nature of existence. These were then cut-and-pasted in such a way as to evoke one evening of insomnia, which ultimately culminates in the coming of the dawn, as despair gives way to the simple pleasures and demands of life.
I set nine of her poems to music, in which I've attempted to convey some of the simultaneous sense of horror, beauty and black humor which abounds in Sexton's poetry and letters. The style varies from jazz and blues influenced songs to melodies based on modal and whole-tone scales. Some of the songs are performed with electric piano - others with the addition of pre-recorded music.
The video artist, Benton-C Bainbridge collaborated with me on this piece, enhancing the audience's perception of Anne Sexton's intimate inner and outer world. Live camera work was used to explore the daily fabric of her life by manipulating objects she used or viewed while working at her desk. In addition, realtime playback was utilized to process and layer photos and videos relating to Sexton's world and her writing.
Anne Sexton lived in a highly vigilant state in which her daily life was constantly being re-examined in the face of inescapable dissolution. This gave a hyper-frenetic, but also vivid - and even joyous - immediacy to her poetic language, and to her relationships with those around her: her husband, daughters, lovers, fellow poets, psychiatrists, students, and admiring audiences. It is this fervent attention to the fleeting glory of life that I wished to capture and celebrate here.
The first performances of InSomnia/InSexton starred Laila Salins, Emily Tremaine and Leyla Ebtehadj, who also directed.
Video Excerpt - Anna Who Was Mad
