The Chains

The Chains is a personality test. The test questions concern three teenagers in Toronto, living mostly in the years 2000-2002. The people in the audience read the questions and circle the answers that are most correct. Then, together, the test-takers learn what their results mean by way of analogy to Sophocles’ Antigone, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty, Mike Harris’s “Common-Sense Revolution” and the great lacuna of the War on Terror. This one’s about You. In other words, it’s all about certain empty spaces: like the space between who You are and what You’re like, between what You read and what You think it means, between the way You come-of-age and the way You go-to-hell. This one’s about You, meaning, more precisely, that it’s a story. And what’s the difference between a story and a test? The Chains is a participatory performance, using the conventions of a personality test, to inform the staging of a live dramatic performance. A play performed in the second-person singular. Writer, Director: Evan Webber Dramaturgy: Ame Henderson, Fan Wu Design: Sherri Hay