ASPHYXIA and Other Promises is a parable based on "Parsley Girl" (the Angela Carter version of the fairy tale), adapted by poet and playwright Henry Israeli, directed by Brad Krumholz, featuring performances by Tannis Kowalchuk, Allison Waters, and John Sullivan, costumes by Erica Nieves, and lights by Oleg Braude.

In a protected convent garden in a war ravaged town, a pregnant woman is caught foraging for food by a deranged nun. Sister, played by Tannis Kowalchuk, convinces the worman to give her unborn child to "The Order of Disorder" in exchange for a scrap of food. The child, Beatrix, played by Allison Waters, is born and is taken by Sister. During the child's life in the magical and absurd Cloister, she is put through a series of impossible tasks. She receives guidance from Asphyxia, a delightful singing anarchist and fairy godmother, who eventually leads Beatrix to commit murder and cannibalism.

Also present in the world of the play are two mysterious figures: Ether, played by NY sound artist John Sullivan, who manipulates the aural landscape of the performance with an ineractive digital sampler, and Wolf, the daemon side of Beatrix, who appears throughout the show, partially naked on a hairy wheeled dolly propelled by bones. As the play progresses, it becomes more and more unclear whether the events are real or if they ar fabricated by the imagination of Beatrix.

ASPHYXA and Other Promises uses dynamic action, acappella song, stilt-walking and extraordinary dialogue to explore passion, repression, chaos, and the human spirit's dual need to build and destroy its own systems.

ASPHYXIA and Other Promises premiered at La MaMa E.T.C. on April 15, 1999 and ran for three weeks. Subsequently, the piece has appeared in the DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival (October 1999), and at The Piano Store on Manhattan's Lower East Side (December 1999).

A Glimpse of the Creative Process

Months before the initial 3-month rehearsal period began, the NACL ensemble of Brad Krumholz, Tannis Kowalchuk and Allison Waters decided to work with a playwright rather than create the story and text on our own, as we had done for the first two ensemble performances. This, we felt, would give our work a new freedom and take our textual component to a higher level. So, we worked with playwright and poet, Henry Israeli, in a very unique way. He observed the initial work sessions and then, in relation to the actors' original actions, songs, improvisations, and scenarios, and from his own perceptions and creative impulses, created the play's text and story-line.

Director, Brad Krumholz, also wanted to incorporate a unique sound element to the performance. In the past the sound has primarily been created by the actors singing a capella. We worked intensely with New York sound artist and musician, John Sullivan, who used his digital sampler and computer to create recorded and live interactive sound. John, through his consistent effort and collaboration, became integral to the performance and developed a performative character and a complete sound-scape for the show. We also collaborated with a guest actor from Italy, Roberto Andrioli, who joined the work later on in the process, a New York costume designer, Erica Nieves, who worked closely with the actresses to build the complicated stilt and ground costumes, and a theatre studies intern from the New School, Damaris Cozza. This kind of collaboration, an integration of diverse media, was new terrain for all involved, and the working methods were always invented as the rehearsal process moved forward.

". . . in the rich mix of synthesized, non-melodic sounds and eerie vocal harmonies, in the hybrid Wolf (part Bunraku puppet, part grocery cart), in the stilt walking and in the teasing obscurity of the dialogue. . . the play's protest is scathing, poetic and masterfully performed."

--Randall Cohn, Edge/NY

The Process Continues

We realized that the work on the play was not complete, and all involved had notions about how the play could work better, given the opportunity to develop it further. So, we decided to go back into the studio to rework ASPHYXIA and Other Promises with the core NACL company members, the writer, sound artist, and costume designer.

We undertook this four months process in the Fall of 1999, and premiered the finished version of ASPHYXIA in December, 1999.