Alchemy Of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues

A play with Songs. Full Length in One Act. 1M (20s), 2W (20s), 3W (40s-50s). Fluid, Open Space.

Alchemy of Desire at Northwestern

Northwestern University, Chicago March 2005, director: Joanie Schultz Photos ©2005 Scott Neale.

Synopsis
A play with original songs set in a primeval landscape of swamp and burnt-out woods. The death of a young soldier (killed in a recent war) sends his widow, and a community of women left behind, on a journey where the soldier’s ghost, fried chicken and other mysteries of spirit and nature come together in a search for pure grace.

  • Winner of the Rosenthal New Play Prize
  • Ball State University, College of Fine Arts, Department of Theatre and Dance (2006) dir Wendy Mortimer
  • Northwestern University Dept of Theatre, IL (2005) dir Joanie Schultz
  • The Bug Theatre, Co (2003) dir Donna Morrison
  • Hackney Empire Studio Theatre, London (1999) dir Dina Elisa Ibrahim
  • Repertorio Espanol, NY (author translation premiere: 1998) dir Michael John Garces
  • Frank Theatre, Minneapolis, MN (1997) dir Wendy Knox
  • Northern Light Theatre International Play Festival, Alberta, Canada (1997)
  • Bridge Theatre, Miami, FL (1996)
    Alchemy of Desire at Ball State

    Ball State University, 2006, director Wendy Mortimer Photo ©2006 Ball State University Dept of Theatre and Dance Archive

  • Royal Court Theatre New American Play Festival, UK (1994) dir Annie Castledine
  • Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, OH (world premiere, 1994) dir Lisa Peterson
  • and productions at: Ithaca College, College of William and Mary, Towson University, Western Washington University, Ohio State University, University of Washington-Seattle, Ball State University and National Theatre Institute, Romania

Developed at ASK Theatre Projects, CA and Playwrights Center’s PlayLabs

Published by TCG in Out of the Fringe: Contemporary Latina/o Theatre and Preformance.

Quotes:

“In Alchemy of Desire/Dead-Man’s Blues, Svich incorporates the sounds of the blues in the South as much as cadences, rhythm, and tone of southern speech. Although the women’s voices have the function of a Greek chorus, their speech  patterns and singing carry the traces of ancestral sounds displaced by the Middle Passage and transformed by their multiple contacts” ~Lillian Manzor on Caridad Svich in Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos and Latinas in the United States. Volume 1. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 (185-6)

“Her writing is often beautifully economical and evocative, reminiscent of William Faulkner’s short stories.” ~TimeOut London

Alchemy of Desire in London

Hackney Empire Studio Theatre, London, 1999, director: Dina Elisa Ibrahim, associate producer: Jan Woolf.

“The play’s main strength lies in its ability to fuse natural, often quite beautiful poetic language with images taken from popular American culture…It is a rich and provocative piece of theatre that deserves to be seen elsewhere.” ~Variety

“Svich’s subject is grief and healing, and the balm she offers audiences is a dark, spooky, earth-bound alternative religion.” ~American Theatre

“A wonderful treathment of the often avoided subject of grief. Marvelous uplifting writing.” Helen Bamber -OBE