Overseers

Times are tough in Sector K, what with the perpetual drought, the growing threat of Rapuccini’s Disease, and the onslaught of refugees from Sector L. Plus, no one celebrates Potensday quite like they used to. A revolutionary, Luisa, arrives with plans to tear down the sector, while Lenny, an obese and hard-working bureaucrat, struggles to keep it together. Dr. Margo Hesper, a long-fingered physician, fights to keep Rapuccini’s Disease out of the sector, while Pater Baruch, a tall and tortured priest, fights to uphold religion within it. Tristan Schwa, a mysterious artist, follows no rules until a chance encounter radicalizes him and opens his eyes to the dangers of the sector. This tale of power struggle and control featured dance numbers, a rainstorm created by the audience, and popsicles for everyone.

Performed in the 2011 Philadelphia Fringe Festival at The Machine Shop in Philadelphia. The setting of this show was a large-scale installation taking up the entire warehouse.

All Photos by Tasha Doremus

BROAD STREET REVIEW

“Many Fringe Festival artists fancy themselves game-changing revolutionaries. But few warp the nature of a viewer’s aesthetic experience quite as radically as Applied Mechanics…. Applied Mechanics’ aesthetic liberates us from this tyranny…. Their approach returns art to the simple, intense joys of discovery and participation in unique, elevated events.”
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THE INQUIRER

“You choose your own adventure, with deft guidance by director Rebecca Wright, who brings up the volume of a discussion in one corner while softening another… Maria Shaplin’s design contributes mightily to Overseers’ unified otherworldliness: The cast wear cultish cream-colored raw linen jumpers; MK Tuomanen’s scientist sports elongated fingers and bustles with the no-nonsense, head-down demeanor of a woodland creature, analyzing slides from atop a wooden perch.”