Ceaseless Funs Invites You To Explore Loss With AGNOSIA

Ceaseless Fun, the group behind last year’s immersive hit Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan, is starting off 2018 with a thematically linked season entitled THE OUTLINE OF A HUMAN.

The first of three shows to make up this season is called AGNOSIA. Directed by Derek Spencer, this short form experiences asks a single audience member to step into a home turned upside-down by loss.

According to their press release about AGNOISA: “Memory, recognition, and even sensory-experience all become unreliable as the audience is asked to examine how unexpected tragedy is absorbed into one’s own identity and narrative. AGNOSIA combines the feverish collage-work of past Ceaseless Fun productions with a more audience-responsive format, allowing for an experience that is both rigorous and intimate.”

This is just vague enough to capture my attention and definitely want to explore more! THE OUTLINE OF A HUMAN is a three-show-season that aims to define and describe the human condition through the use of negative space. The three shows, while not narratively linked, all meditate on loss, legacy, memory, & consumption through a variety of lenses.

Thankfully, we reached out to the folks at Ceaseless Fun, and director Derek Spencer were nice enough to answer some questions for us about the upcoming shows.

HORRORBUZZ: Where did the idea of THE OUTLINE OF A HUMAN come from?

CEASELESS FUN: Originally, I was just interested in devising an adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh. As I started digging into the text and outlining and reading, though, I felt a number of distinct ideas and concepts separating themselves from each other. The original text is a classic piece of literature with a history that reaches back four thousand years. Gilgamesh has been retranslated, repurposed, and rejuvenated a number of times. There is so much depth and mystery in the epic that I couldn’t contain everything I was interested in one show. While only the second show, THEY WHO SAW THE DEEP, is an actual “adaptation” of Gilgamesh, they are all inspired to varying degrees by my relationship with that text and the sorts of questions it asks.

The name of the season actually comes from a conversation I had with my partner one night. Talking over dinner, we realized that a number of our current preoccupations all basically came down to an attempt to define the human condition by putting limits on it, or at least by exploring possible limits. I realized, through conversation, that the ultimate through-line between the various pieces I was considering for the series was this idea of boundaries, definition, and space. Thus, THE OUTLINE OF A HUMAN.

HORRORBUZZ: How will AGNOSIA set the tone for the rest of the series?

CEASELESS FUN: AGNOSIA kicks the series off on a microscopic level. We’re taking a fine lens (the 1-audience show) and looking at the most basic way in which we know ourselves: in relationship to the other. By looking very closely at a duality, a relationship, we think about how the outline of a human is formed between two people. Where does one start and the other begin? How do they help each other define themselves? From there, the series will slowly scope out. THEY WHO SAW THE DEEP will look more broadly at the foundations of community and the ways in which our own personal narratives and goals constitute the identity of the collective. And finally, THE STARS will look at society as a whole — our identity as it can be deciphered through consumption, and the space we fill in the very system itself.

It should be noted that these summaries are a bit reductive, as all three of the shows are devised works with different tracks. Ultimately, I’m just giving the actors and audience an idea of what questions to ask. The answers they find together will (and should!) vary.

HORRORBUZZ: Why did you decide to have a connective theme for this series of shows?

CEASELESS FUN: Aside from my remarks above about simply having a lot of different ideas and techniques that I wanted to apply to one core set of ideas, I think it’s a good way to engage the audience in conversation. I like to make work that prompts dialogue and challenges assumptions — attacking the same core issues from 3 very different angles seems like a good way to push the post-show conversation into a critical, productive place.

AGNOSIA will last about 20 minutes, and takes place January 18 – January 26, 2018 in Lincoln Heights in Los Angeles. Tickets are $20 and are available now at agnosia.bpt.me