The Pipeline reading premiere of Jacob Marx Rice’s Cracks is coming July 16, 7:30PM, to the Bonfire Series. In advance of his reading, we asked Jacob to tell us a little more about this third play in his The Suicidal Comedies series.
Learn more about this memory play that starts eating its own tale below, and reserve those tickets ($10 suggested donation) for his July 16, 7:30PM reading, at South Oxford Space (138 S. Oxford St., Brooklyn).
Pipeline Theatre Company: What do you want us to know about your play?
Jacob Marx Rice: The play is exploring a lot of different threads. It’s a science play. A play about mental illness. A fractured memory play. An in-depth exploration of the true nature of eggs. Despite the tangle, I think all the threads end up addressing aspects of the same question: How can you keep going when the world is so fucked up? Plus, it’s a comedy!
PTC: When and where did you decide to start writing this play? Why?
JMR: This play is the final piece of a trilogy called The Suicidal Comedies, which I started four years ago on a park bench in Ireland. The trilogy is thematically, rather than narratively, connected; Chemistry explores mania, depression and suicidal ideation while Coping explores OCD, and the immediate aftermath of suicide. The goal for the trilogy was to address mental illness and suicide in an honest way that neither fetishizes nor dismisses it. I wanted to find the truth of living and dying with mental illness.
PTC: What excites you most about this project?
JMR: This is my most theatrical play to date. It’s a memory play that starts eating its own tale. It’s been an exciting challenge to figure out how to keep the story clear while shifting and shattering the expected rules of reality. Thankfully, Pipeline’s been looking out for me!
PTC: In once sentence, tell us something strange that happens in your play.
JMR: Humpty Dumpty starts juggling, and then smashing, eggs.
PTC: Are you working on anything else?
JMR: I’m currently working a new play about Leni Riefenstahl, the first major female filmmaker, and Nazi minister Joseph Goebbels. Riefenstahl created a filmic language so ubiquitous we don’t even notice when films like Star Wars or the Lion King rip it off. Goebbels was this tiny, disfigured character who was supposedly the most seductive man in Germany. They were both strangely admirable underdogs, and yet they worked together to knowingly promote the deepest evil imaginable.
PTC: Two truths and a lie, go:
JMR: Due to similar chemical profiles, the best substitute for an egg in baking recipes is blood.
The original humpty dumpty rhyme never says he’s an egg. No one knows exactly how the two became inextricably linked.
The largest omelet in the world was made with 100,000 eggs.
PTC: What’s next for you?
JMR: I’m starting to grad school at NYU in September! That should hopefully keep me busy for a bit.
About Cracks
by Jacob Marx Rice | directed by Anna Strasser
Saturday, July 16, 7:30PM
Make a Reservation
Nicole is trying to unboil an egg. Kat is trying to stop Global Warming. When romance sparks between the two, Nicole must confront the explosive ending of her last relationship, with the help of a giant egg named Humpty Dumpty.
