Tina Satter/Half Straddle: Is This A Room: Reality Winner Verbatim Transcription (United States)

Tina Satter is a dramatist, director and teacher. She works internationally and is based in New York, also the home of the Half Straddle collective, managed by Satter, which produces dramas, performances, video and music, and has been seen at venues through US, Europe, Australia and Asia. One of the collective’s focal points and drivers of their aesthetics and content is queer and feminist dynamics.

In one of his novels, Mark Twain put the following words in one of the protagonist’s mouth: »Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t«. It’s hard to say anything more accurate about today’s world of post‑reality and post‑factuality. As suggested by the second part of the title, Is This A Room is a performance where the drama text is a literal transcript of the FBI interrogation of Reality Winner at her home. Reality Winner, a former linguist for a US Army contractor, currently serves time in prison, having confessed to whistleblowing – she allegedly provided secret information about Russian interference in the US election to an online publication The Intercept. One year ago, she was sentenced to the longest prison term ever given for such a crime (in order to serve as an example). Can the truth come out in a performance stripped of everything – only top quality acting, operating on an empty stage with nothing more than staging of an already »played out« event? If we cannot outdo reality, let’s give it a stage so that we can look at it. At least a part of it. At least from one side.

Concept and Direction by: Tina Satter
Score by: Sanae Yamada
Costume Design: Enver Chakartash
Set Design: Parker Lutz
Lighting Design: Thomas Dunn
Sculptural Design: Amanda Villalobos
Production and Stage Management: Randi Rivera
Company management: Mariana Catalina
Technical Direction: Andy Sowers
Cast: Emily Davis, Frank Boyd, TL Thompson, Becca Blackwell
Creative Producer: Meiyin Wang
With support of: Howard Gilman Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Joseph & Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, City Council & New York State Council on the Arts, premiera/premiered at: The Kitchen, New York City
This engagement is supported by: Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation through USArtists International in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation and the Trust for Mutual Understanding

70 minutes

Performance is in English with Slovene surtitles.

Foto: Paula Court

Information and ticket reservations: info@bunker.si