About This Show

This show blends virtuosic performance and a deep engagement with lineages of tantric Buddhism, neopagan ritual, and astrology. Speare uses these lineages to confront how a desire to ‘belong’ leads young men to join right-wing groups and idealize powerful right-wing figures. Over the course of the performance, Ronald Reagan leads young Speare, as Virgil led Dante, down a tunnel of personal and national insecurity. Speare’s extended singing ranges evoke not only the subjective lament of a man in crisis, but also the plaintive cries of a nation begging for a ritualistic enactment–or collective purging–of its shadows. Physical Dramaturgy by Ana Cantoran Viramontes.