Last Gasp: A Recalibration

“How to survive a loss. First you recalibrate…”

Landing somewhere between the realms of the live and the virtual, present and absent, between staying home and venturing out, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver combine spoken word, movement and Zoom technology to respond to the world we now find ourselves in.

In early 2020, these two icons of lesbian-feminist theater set out to present Last Gasp, a live performance questioning demise: the demise of aging bodies, civil conversations, and a sustainable planet. The pandemic arrived and knocked the breath out of us, as did a period of civil unrest that marched under the banner of “I can’t breathe.” The ironies were not lost as the duo locked down, stayed in and continued their investigations resulting in a Zoom recording, Last Gasp WFH.

Now almost two years later, Last Gasp: A Recalibration gathers us in the same room but not as the same people. Reworking Last Gasp WFH for the physical stage, Shaw and Weaver unpick what it means to be in a theater, and what it means to perform. With episodes entitled “The Trump in Me” and “How to Set a Table in an Emergency,” the legendary performance duo brings us together to recalibrate — we are not coming to an end but finding strategies for moving on.

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