Original Sin

Sarah Newhouse and Jim Loutzenhiser

The characters in this play all swim in a world of manmade suppression: levees, intense racism, artificial borders (“toe across Bradford Street”), sanctioned deities (“God” and “the Devil”), prohibition, and institutional marriage. And each has different strengths and tactics to survive it. Will’s remarkably precise and funny language fuels the fire. (As an actor I can feel it when I’m saying a line incorrectly.)

We sense that while this suppression can be “successful” for long periods, the primordial cataclysms are only that much greater when they finally come.  The “original sin” in the play seems to be both collective and individual. The vulnerable have been forced into “work” while those in positions of power take full opportunity to exploit. And a senseless murder has taken place. In an earlier version of the script, Evans said: “we were all drunk on the same evil…” His journey since then, I think: suppression of memory, exile, failed attempts at recovery, and now, after 19 years, and one of sobriety, a first real attempt to reclaim his place.

But sometimes a senseless act committed 20 years ago can’t be undone -- and sets off some weird kind of butterfly effect that, like a flood or great fire, may consume us all. And then, as Nettie says, “it’s done. It’s a storm. It’s only to be weathered. And maybe it comes for us.”

- Jim Loutzenhiser