Introducing: Mimesophobia

From Brian Golden, Artistic Director (and Mimesophobia cast member):

We’re two weeks deep in rehearsals for Theatre Seven’s 10^th production, MIMESOPHOBIA, and I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t prepare you for just how wonderfully and beguilingly strange this play is.

MIMESOPHOBIA is genuinely, unapologetically odd. Strange. Unsettling. Weird. Haunting. The kind of play that makes you very, very afraid to look away. I have to prepare you for all those things, because this play is delightfully “outside the box” – unlike anything Theatre Seven has done. Unlike anything I’ve ever done!

The show’s plot concerns the re-enactment of a true-crime murder suicide with ties to Hyde Park and the U. of Chicago. Two screenwriters are trying to write a movie about the killing, the murdered woman’s sister is reconstructing her dead sister’s diary, and a deranged academic with connections to the crime is writing a book on the American obsession with violence. Two “who-are-they” narrators guide the re-enactment and the actors portraying the real life people.

So that’s the plot. Is this a play about plot? Sort of. A little. Not really.

When Margot and I first met with Carlos Murillo to discuss the play (Margot is the play’s genius director, Carlos is the play’s genius writer, and Co-Head of Playwriting at DePaul’s Theatre School), we talked about all the reasons we found the play awesome, and right up Theatre Seven’s alley. There’s great language, some incredible opportunities for heightened moments, spooky design, and real theatrical suspense. There’s mystery, violence, sex…and it’s all true. Or is it?

In MIMESOPHOBIA, the lines between fiction and fantasy are fuzzy at best. That’s kind of the point (or one of the points). Given a story to tell, and a choice between the two, are humans prone to choosing fantasy if they can make it sexier than reality? Would we rather believe a sexy lie than a banal truth? And what business is it of yours when it comes to someone else’s tragedy, anyway? Do any of the distinctions really matter? Do they even exist?

I think if we’ve done our job, you’ll leave this play with your heart racing, feeling a little confused, a little excited, and more than a little dirty. And if that all sounds strangely intriguing, I think we’re off to a good start.