Women's Ensemble Theatre production at Experimental Space, New Federal Theatre, NYC 1987
Brooklyn Cultural Arts Association, excerpts performance, NYC 1987
KIVA Foundation Benefit, excerpts performance, NYC 1988

Video of production highlights produced at Starrett Television, NYC 1988

From "Remembrance of Things Past" Section:

(As Grandmother's Story is heard on tape, a soundscape of whispering voices and other 'memory' sounds are intercut softly underneath. Additionally, as the actors bring out boxes to bury WOMAN 2 on stage, they echo certain phrases of the text.)

Grandmother's Story

Once upon a time there was a woman with amnesia who moved into a large white house on a hill.  The woman lived for two years in this house without any possessions.  She spent her time wandering from empty room to empty room trying to remember her past.
    One day she decided she would create a past for herself so she went out and bought a small jewelry box.  She spent the next year filling the jewelry box with tiny objects.  "This ring my husband gave me."  "This lace came from my grandmother's wedding dress."  Eventually, the box was filled with threads, buttons, match sticks, bottles, ribbons, stamps, coins, jewelry, old pens, and a little pair of children's scissors.
    When the box could not hold one more thing, the woman went out and bought a box that was larger than a breadbox but smaller than a Toyota.  She spent the next four years collecting objects to put in the box and making up memories about the objects.  "This hat I wore to my first communion."  "This doll my child played with when she was 5."  The woman filled the box with papers of all kinds - diplomas, passports, notebooks, birthday cards, graduation programs, and letters.  Letters that she wrote to herself in the guise of other people.  Love letters to old boyfriends, hate letters from her sister, letters from her child at camp, letters to her father asking for money, chatty letters from her girlfriends, letters to her husband telling him she was leaving, letters to her lawyer, letters of sympathy, letters of business, letters of life all written in different colored inks in different handwritings on different types of paper.  She put cancelled stamps on all the envelops and tied them up with a string.
    When the box couldn't hold anymore, the woman went out and got a large box the size of a closet.  She stuffed it with old clothes, she stuffed it with shoes and boots, she stuffed it with records, books, old typewriters, phone books, televisions, suitcases, and a tennis racquet.  She could see herself wearing white shorts playing tennis with a new lover on a cool spring morning.
    When the box couldn't hold anymore, she got dozens of boxes, hundreds of boxes, thousands of boxes, and spent the next twenty-five years filling them with objects from her not remembered past.  Eventually the entire house was filled with so many boxes that there was just enough room to lay down.
    Her past was complete.  So she went out and bought a final box - a coffin - and carried it home where she set it in the middle of the boxes and lay down inside and remembered her death and her funeral.

You can view a slide show of photos from the original production here.  You must have a flash enabled browser to view this.  The file size is large, so there may be a wait until the file loads if you have a slow connection.

If you do not have flash, or have a slow connection, you may wish to view the production photos here.

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