S.O.E.

“All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn, for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds.”  –Virginia Woolf

History remembers Aphra Behn as the first woman to make her living as a writer— a feat made the more remarkable by the fact that she managed it in the 17^th century—and as a spy for the British crown, but that’s about where history gives up.  Aphra Behn’s real life was shrouded in mystery.  Had she visited the exotic locales that were the subject of her plays?  Where was she born?  When?  As a historical figure, Aphra Behn remains obstinately elusive.

EMPRESS OF THE MOON, the new play by Life of John Henry author Chris Braak, purports to answer none of these questions.  It is instead a mythic, epic ride into an imagined history, flirting with facts at a discreet distance as she travels from Surinam to Flanders to debtor’s prison.  EMPRESS OF THE MOON draws heavily on Aphra’s own bombastic style, and is full of swordfights, disguises, romance and sexuality, and simultaneously examines the question:  what does it mean to make a story from your own experience?  When fiction is your life, how can you be sure that your life isn’t itself a fiction?

EMPRESS OF THE MOON is the inaugural production of Iron Age Theater’s new Special Operations Executive.  Iron Age itself has been a significant, daring, and high-quality theater in Philadelphia for more than ten years.  The new SOE program (www.iatsoe.org) is a low-budget, experimental branch of the company, designed to develop and experiment with new works, new actors, and new technologies.  The SOE is maximally versatile, using whatever space is available; this first production will appear at the ADRIENNE THEATER’S SECOND STAGE, on FRIDAY THE 13^TH of AUGUST.

EMPRESS OF THE MOON is purposefully constructed as a vehicle for woman; it features six actresses, each of whom plays multiple parts, both male and female.  The play is designed to give actresses opportunities that other, male-focused plays lack, and to simultaneously explore some of the performative qualities of gender and sexuality. The roles are meant to precipitate a new genre of storytelling; a kind of “trans-realism,” in which conflicting fictions, or both reality and fiction, are presented at once.

This production features CASEY CONAN, late of the Collingswood Shakespeare Festival; expert fencers JACQUELINE HOLLOWAY and JAQUINLEY KERR; LAUREN KERSTETTER, recently the Marquise de Merteuil in a production of Dangerous Liaisons in Norristown; and LAURA MCWATER, who has just finished a highly-successful production of Company in Phoenixville.  JENNIFER HUTTEN also stars.

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

SUPER-IMPORTANT UPDATE!

In conjunction with science and speculative fiction website WWW.IO9.COM, the opening night of Empress of the Moon will be livecast simultaneously on the internet, making it available AROUND THE WORLD.  So far as I, or anyone else here, knows, this will be the first time in Philadelphia that the opening night of a world premiere play will be livecast, and it represents either a bold new technique for the future of new plays, or else the death of everything we’ve come to love about the theater.  Or both, possibly.

“Aphra Behn: a name from the past (my past, graduate school; her past, 17th century). Empress of the Moon, by Chris Braak, is a pseudo-biodrama about Behn’s life, a bold experiment by Special Operations Executive, the experimental wing of Iron Age Theatre, at the Adrienne Theater.  But Empress of the Moon is an impressive and ambitious project, calling to mind Behn’s own Prologue to The Emperor of the Moon: “Long and at vast expense, the industrious stage / Has strove to please a dull ungrateful age.”  Count me among the grateful for this arcane and interesting  theatrical event.”

Toby Zinman
Philadelphia Inquirer

“This is a fascinating theatrical adventure, a mind and gender-bending romp about a fascinating and overlooked historical figure and SO MUCH MORE … go see it!”

Mark Cofta

“Braak directed Empress as a first work for the Special Operations Executive, an experimental branch of Norristown’s Iron Age Theatre. The staging succeeds as an experimental piece…with deft Performances …. (and) expertly choreographed sword fighting”

Jim Rutter
Broad Street Review