DENIM DOVES

by ADRIENNE DAWES

Sacred Fools Theater Company
Los Angeles, California
January-February 2018

“In a not-too-distant future, nestled deep in the woods of what was once a small Midwestern town, a modest compound is home to five denim-clad sister wives and their naive husband, "Penis." When a mysterious sixth wife arrives to join the sisterly Braid, clad in scandalous acid-wash and singing forbidden songs of ancient riot grrls, will she compromise the security of this pious sect? And who, if anyone, will produce a long-awaited heir from the night of 'The Seedling', their semi-annual procreation ritual?”

A production of Adrienne Dawe’s post-apocalyptic feminist farce staged within the confines of a sterile, unused nursery. Denim Doves imagines a radically religious and socially conservative America in the near future wherein men marry multiple wives who are treated as breeders of children and nothing more. Women are discounted, abused, and extinguished if they do not comply. In order to stage a farce that is juggling such sensitive and relevant subject matter, it is key to connect the ensemble with the earnest belief and heightened stakes the characters are experiencing. With a fictionalized religion at the center of the story, physical specificity was key to distinguish between the ritual and mundane for such heightened characters. With this focus in mind, the team worked to create a physical vocabulary that denoted status among the wives, established differing levels of devoutness, and which served as physical representations of prayer. Specifying the details of the religion and each character's devotion served to create a funnier, more engaging farce. This physical vocabulary is taken to its highest level in the final scene of the play, where the “prophet” of the religion is about to make an unprecedented visit to the compound. In preparation of his arrival, the residents of the compound perform an upbeat, highly physical prayer as an offering. In our production, Prophet catches the tail end of their performance and is so delighted that he demands they do it again. The compound is so in awe of his presence that they gladly perform it again, this time a bit more frenetically to please him as he watches. Upon the conclusion of their second performance Prophet announces that he is so taken with the way they performed it the second time that he’d love to see it a third time, but even faster. In this third performance the characters, still dutifully dedicated to pleasing Prophet, perform the piece double-timed, bumping into one another, tripping over themselves, and occasionally stopping to catch their breath. This third round of the prayer is pure farce, but because it has been rooted in the immense seriousness of the characters circumstances it paves the way for the end of the play, which is a harrowing warning of what can happen to our most marginalized citizens when people with privilege abandon their free will in exchange for temporary power.

CAST

FIRST WIFE - Janellen Steininger 
SECOND WIFE - Meg Cashel
THIRD WIFE - Jennie Kwan
FOURTH WIFE - Lana Rae Jarvis
FIFTH WIFE - Teri Gamble
SIXTH WIFE - Evangeline Crittendon
FIRST SON - Tyler Bremer
PENIS - Cory Johnson
PROPHET - MJ Brown
JOAN - Angel Maurnaé

CREATIVE