CounterPULSE was pleased to host the re-incarnation of Carpetbag Brigade’s “You Don’t Know Jack” in conjunction with Bad Unkl Sista’s “Study of Soft” this past weekend.
Carpetbag Brigade writes, “This is without a doubt our best show and it has had a 3 year maturation process with exquisite direction from Varrick Grimes, formerly of Toronto, Canada’s Number 11 Theater. The Carpetbag Brigade adds a Jungian twist with a dash of PTSD to Jack and the Beanstalk. You don’t know Jack is the surreal tragic comedy of an alcoholic dead man and the shadow of his wild dysfunctional family. Inspired by Robert Bly’s The Sibling Society, this funny nightmarish fairy tale excavates the echo of trauma created by the casual and constant contact soldiers have with war. Young Jack grows up in a world overshadowed by the ghosts of his grandfather’s death from alcohol and war-induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Trying to make sense of a mother who sings disturbing lullabies, teachers who eat children and a puzzling world of contradictory voices and dreams emerging from the grave, Jack plunges into a parallel inner world. Here, amidst a crew of grotesque characters shipwrecked between myth and reality, for whom life is a struggle not to become monsters, Jack penetrates the upside-down fairy–tale world enveloping him.
With original and traditional music played live onstage by the performers and a rich tapestry of objects and poetry, YOU DON’T KNOW JACK is a theatrical response to the moral and emotional wars that soldiers return home with.”
Explaining the unexplainable, Bad Unkl Sista self-identifies as “a continually evolving Butoh based performance experience. Each performance is an authentic and vulnerable offering given by performers of all skill levels of Butoh study. Bad Unkl Sista fuses multi-genre dance forms, live and original music, art installation, video and couture costuming to provide a stimulating, thought provoking journey into our human mindscape. For 2010 Bad Unkl Sista has begun a year long study of soft and will present a different performance each night at CounterPULSE.”
What did YOU think of the performances?
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