cruel & unusual

Is torture hideous? Hilarious? Or both?

Five theater artists from the Bay Area present the World Premiere of cruel & unusual: a provocation of short plays on the subject of TORTURE at the San Francisco Fringe Festival. The playwrights spent months researching torture practices in U.S. prisons, in U.S. homes, in Abu Ghraib and in Guantanamo as well as in places as far-flung as Argentina, Uzbekistan, and Spain under the Inquisition. Each of the short plays is a direct response to a U.S. policy on torture that has made headlines in recent years. But the plays are personal and focus on people, rather than on an abstract concept or political theme.

“It’s a difficult subject. We have planned soaring, wordless arias between the short plays to help uplift and provide emotional texture for the audience,” says Erin Blackwell, the show’s director. “The success of politically-oriented plays at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe means people are grappling with the state of the world and what people are doing to each other.”

cruel & unusual abides by the Geneva Conventions for the humane treatment of audiences.

S C H E D U L E:

Wednesday, September 6 at 10:00 PM
Thursday, September 7 at 7:00 PM
Friday, September 8 at 8:30 PM
Tuesday, September 12 at 7:00 PM
Thursdsay, September 14 at 7:00 PM
Friday, September 15 at 10:00 PM