Event

Reader by Ariel Dorfman

In a dark dystopia reminiscent of the works of Ray Bradbury and George Orwell, the government's top censor, Daniel Lucas, is confronted with a manuscript that threatens to expose his darkest secrets. In his quest to uncover the story's author, he finds that not only do its words reveal the secrets of his past, but that they may also predict the details of his future. As the worlds of fiction and reality clash and combine, a nightmarish reality emerges where any one of us can be cut, recut, and redacted into oblivion, spotlighting the harsh consequences of bureaucratic control over the flow of information.

Chilean-American playwright Ariel Dorfman, having lived long spans of his life in exile, views the systematic control of a government through a fantastical lens that reflects on any society and its people. He says in a 1995 interview with the LA Times: "The play says that not all censorship comes from the state, but also from within individuals. It says that to suppress other people, you have to suppress a part of yourself. I am obsessed with people's need to tell their own stories." Building off of Dorfman's interweaving story, director Jake Scaltreto (Bug, Copenhagen) creates an ethereal space that will use lights, sounds, and imaginative staging to emphasize the fluidity of the show's progression into chaos.