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Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut. The show appeared at PuSh two years ago but is back again because it was one of the most talked about, provocative and popular pieces.
It all starts with a decrepit old suitcase found by actor James Long in his back alley. The suitcase was full of photo albums with extensive captions assembled by a woman he identifies as The Archivist. He then becomes obsessed with piecing together the family's history and imagining the stories and relationships that defined these people's lives. The story grows more personal when the whole endeavour is threatened by the question of who has the right to display and talk about these photographs which ended up in the trash.
The show is playful and inventive with physical comedy (bunny sets up mikes and screens), dramatic monologue, projections of video (each subject is also wearing the bunny suit, sans head) and photos and a narrative that jumps around before circling in on the heart of the matter.
The story is deeply involved with the question of memory and reality, how we construct stories and what is present and what is absent. Most of the photos are shown with faces blurred out and we assume that this is for legal reasons. But late in the show Long reveals that he has used his own family photos to stand it for those that inspired the elaborate retelling of connections between parents and dogs and children and grandchildren and summers at the lake. I didn't know what to believe anymore and it felt great.