Cultural Event 3: The Old Women

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a dress rehearsal of my friends Katy's and Cheyenne's latest play, "The Old Women" the other night. The play is a French horror play written around the 1920's. It takes place in an asylum and involves some fun horror effects and classic creepiness, including fake blood and eerie sound effects. In terms of being a cultural experience, I was surprised with how much the "low tech" drama of a theater horror production could affect me. I was legitimately scared at points during the show, but it was not due to gory or showy effects or typical story lines. This fear came from the implied scary undertones: an underlying sexual tension between doctor and patient, the threat of the unknown and an impending feeling of dread overall. The result was an oddly scary theatrical production, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I took pictures while I was there, and one of my favorite pictures was this one. It shows Cheyenne, as the child Louise, sitting next to a doctor from the asylum. The doctor was thoroughly creepy in that he was making advances on the young child (a classic "trusted father figure" being perverted and made into a subject of fear.) I liked that the photograph looks black and white simply by the use of the costumes, though it is technically in color! The shadows in a theater are always interesting, as well.