With an introduction by Sara Tilley
From playwright and poet Shannon Bramer comes Trapsongs, a collection
of three dark comedies that navigate the realm of the surreal and
absurd.
In Monarita, an intimate friendship between Mona, a frazzled new mother,
and Rita, her beloved, estranged friend, is explored. Their interaction
is a dance--part ballet, part mud-fight. In The Collectors, Hanna Parson
is being harassed by three ghastly collection agents who force her to
confront her debt and isolation as she struggles to create meaningful
art in her dishevelled apartment. And in the tragicomedy The Hungriest
Woman in the World, Aimee, a former artist, invites her preoccupied,
workaholic husband, Robert, to the theatre to see a play about a sad
octopus. His refusal sends her on a dark and playful journey into the
topsy-turvy world of theatre itself.
Trapsongs is by turns comedic, grotesque, and profane, but is all the
while a tender exploration of the human condition in all its hilarious
and humbling glory. Although each of these plays is a discrete creation,
they contain and hold each other like a Matryoshka doll; all of the main
characters are trapped within the song of their own lives.
