Director: Virginia Preston Music: Louis Scafouras Roles and Performers: Randy – Melissa Holroyd (Australia), Jim – Kristi Hughes (U.S.A) / Lucy Cran (U.K.), Virgil – Kelly Ann Sharmann, Emmett – Anna Finn (Canada)
Naked West is a satirical text by Calgary writer Michael Green. The piece is written for four male characters—and according to the script the gender of the players is optional. Ours is the first staging by an all-female cast.
Jim, Randy, Virgil and Emmett are hunters in the woods. Over the course of an alcohol-fueled night, they discover their desire for animals, violence and one another.
The piece structurally resembles A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the language is an elevated fusion of cowboy poetry and heroic monologues. In place of Puck, the piece is haunted by the Native American Trickster god Coyote.
Under Coyote's influence, the characters shapeshift, fight, and play out violent unconscious motives. The group kills Emmett after he strangles a mountain lion (Virgil) with his bare hands. Like all fables, the characters never die. Both Virgil and Emmett return as ghosts.
Working with a creative team including set designer Moss Fitzpatrick and sound designer DJ Scarlett Johansen, we developed a spare, styrofoam environment that distilled our wastelands concept to three core elements: moveable cacti in forced perspective, a skull, and absurd props such as cardboard guns and fright wigs. Sounds, gestures and vocal qualities reference clichés from Hollywood, ’Spaghetti-Westerns’ and TV-series.
The piece presents several challenges. Not only are the players women playing men, the characters also change gender and become animals.
The actors and I developed 'breaks' from the narrative: line-dances, silent scenes and movement sequences featuring galloping-sounds made on half-coconuts and pop music. Using signs to identify themselves as narrators, the performers also announce the action and stage direction.
Ultimately, Naked West, is a political piece in masquerade – a philosophical critique in drag. Loneliness and beauty stalk these urban cowboys