Language Games

In a fictional world of philosophy and language, Sheela joins three great thinkers from the past (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Walter Benjamin, and Paul Shepard) for a spirited game of mahjong.  As they play, her energy conjures Joseph Beuys as a mythological hare.  Invisible to the players, he interjects cultural incantations while the players contemplate how language evolved from naming animals to representing them with signs and how myths serve the human need to imagine.  Physical chair-play creates an escalating rhythm as tensions build and the hare inspires Sheela to be more confrontational.  As the chair-e-ography builds to a crescendo, Sheela questions a philosophical theory and wins the game.

 

Cast: 
Nikki Calonge (Sheela Nagig), Kevin R. Free (Paul Shepard), Christopher Borg (Walter Benjamin), Desmond Dutcher (Joseph Beuys), and Matthew Trumbull (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Authors: 
Barbara Yoshida