Grass Widow:

a play for three digital characters and an actress

Live Animation Performance, collaboration with Neta Shpigelman

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A lone actress stands on an almost empty stage. Behind her is a large wall on which the interior of an apartment is projected. Underneath her clothes she wears a motion capture suit that records her body and facial movements, transferring them to three digital figures inside the apartment. thereby breathing life into them. The director, who is in the wings, synchronizes the character played by the actress with her virtual figures on screen in real time, using a control system. The point of departure for the performance is Jean Paul Sartre’s play No Exit (Huis clos) which recounts the story of three people—two women and one man—who find themselves in an apartment without knowing why, gradually realizing that they are there to stay, and that they are each other’s hell. As Sartre put it, “Hell is other people.” Similar to the original play, here too, the apartment is also a model, a representation, a substitute for something else: it is located in an IDF base in Israel’s south, yet simulates an apartment in a war zone. Grass Widow combines elements from the language of theater, television sets, computer games, reality shows, escape rooms, and a military simulator.

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Duration: 50 min