Concerning Strange Devices from the Distant West

Chicago Premiere

Jan 15, 2013 - Apr 14, 2013

This sexy, multi-faceted puzzle of a play travels from East to West and across time, exploring provocative themes in both epic scope and human scale. In the 1880s, a Victorian woman visiting Japan is fascinated by a new invention — the camera — that allows people to own images of distant lands they never dreamed they would be able to see. In modern-day Tokyo, a collector navigates shifting relationships in search of physical memories of the past. Along the way we gaze as if through a lens at the mysterious intersection of art and authenticity, where very little is what it appears to be.