Jet Lag
Jet Lag was inspired by two news items of the ’60s whose truth was much stranger than fiction. Two stories are presented one after the other in a virtual allegory. The first is the tale of a British sailor on a doomed mission, the second that of an American grandmother who takes her young grandson with her on a mad journey.
Both are out of bounds and out of control. In the first story, journalist Donald Crowhurst (Rodger Dearborn) is on a solo sail in a round-the-world race. Rather than admit that he is turning in circles in the middle of the Atlantic, he manipulates the reports he sends to the BBC. His ship’s log and navigation records reveal his plunge into a madness that leads to suicide. In the second piece, Sarah Krassnoff (Doris Schwartz) decides to subvert her son-in-law’s plans to send his son in for psychiatric treatment by taking the boy with her as she crosses the Atlantic 167 times, flying back and forth between New York and Amsterdam, without ever stepping outside the two airports. The old woman does not survive the physical and psychological toll of her bizarre voyage. Combining onstage action, narration and live and pre-recorded video, Jet Lag is a meditation on modernity, on the anxiety that results from the loss of reference points in time and space.
MULTIMEDIA PERFORMANCE DIRECTED BY MARIANNE WEEMS CREATED BY THE BUILDERS ASSOCIATION IN ASSOCIATION WITH DILLER+SCOFIDIO TEXT BY JESSICA CHALMERS VIDEO IMAGES BY CHRISTOPHER KONDEK COMPUTER ANIMATION BY JAMES GIBBS AND ERIC SCHULDENFREI SOUNDSCAPE BY DAN DOBSON LIGHTING DESIGN BY JENNIFER TIPTON INTERPRETATION BILL VELINERIC DYERMATTHEW MAHERHEAVEN PHILLIPSDALE SOULES, JEFF WEBSTER
