Eternal
Photo by Michael Koshkin
A merging of theater, cinema, and environmental installation, Eternal is Fish’s most conceptually ambitious production to date. In August, Fish assembled a film crew to shoot actors Thomas Jay Ryan and Christina Rouner performing the final scene of the 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in a continuous loop for two hours. The unedited two channel video of their performance will be projected at The Incubator Arts Project on a pair of screens that face each other from across the space. The audience sits between the lovers/screens.
“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: ‘This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more’– Nietzsche
Artist Statement: “When we shot Eternal, I imposed one restraint on the actors, the crew and myself : we must keep going, no matter what happens. I’m interested in the the boredom, the humor, and the extreme emotions that might come from playing or watching the same scene over and over.”
Collaborating Artists: Christina Rouner, Thomas Jay Ryan, Blanca Añon, Thomas Dunn, Michael Koshkin, Andrew Lazarow, Mark Van Hare, Terese Wadden
About Daniel Fish: Daniel Fish is a director of theater, opera and film. Internationally known for his bold re-visioning of dramatic classics (Shakespeare, Moliere, Rodgers and Hammerstein) or else finding theater where none was intended (the writing of David Foster Wallace, the films of Nicholas Ray), his work is at once conceptually rigorous and theatrically lavish.
Fish’s work has been seen at Opera Philadelphia/Curtis Opera, The Chocolate Factory, Arts Emerson, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Staatstheater Braunschweig, American Repertory Theater, Fisher Center at Bard College,Yale Rep, McCarter Theater, Signature Theater, The Shakespeare Theater Company, The Zipper, The Royal Shakespeare Company.
Residencies and commissions include Baryshnikov Arts Center, LMCC/Governor’s Island, The Chocolate Factory, and Incubator Arts Project.
Upcoming for Daniel Fish: Death, a collaboration with Andrew Dinwiddie, premieres at The Bushwick Starr in March 2014.
Upcoming for Eternal: Premiere at Incubator Arts Project, October 10-20, 2013