This Place is a Desert

Inspired by the work of Italian modernist filmmaker Michelangelo Antonioni, Jay Scheib’s This Place is a Desert is a boundary blurring theatrical creation for a generation raised in the language of cinema. The audience views this portrait of human love gone increasingly wrong in fragments – through windows, reflected in mirrors, and through partially-drawn curtains. Meanwhile, the action is projected live onto a wide screen above the stage architecture as a lone cinematographer moves through the set. The result is a sensually charged, live cinema study of four lovers destroying each other in an attempt to defy their impenetrable loneliness.

This Place is a Desert was developed in collaboration with media artist Leah Gelpe.