written by Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

directed by Eva Tessler

“If Henrik Ibsen had been alive in the era of Guantanamo,
he’d surely have written a play every bit as scintillating as Lidless..”.
—The Scotsman, August 2010

Winner of the Yale Drama Series Award for Playwriting in 2009

A searingly poetic and incisively political play that explores the nature of trauma, the conflicting eroticism and brutality of violence, and the blurry line between revenge and redemption — It has been fifteen years since Alice served in the U.S. Army at Guantánamo Bay and she has successfully reinvented herself and suppressed all memories of her prior life, living contentedly with her husband and teenage daughter. Until Bashir, a Pakistani Muslim, shows up at Alice’s flower shop and asks for an unusual request. His visit sets into motion a series of visceral and spiritual encounters among six characters whose lives will be forever connected and defined by a single act of inhumanity.

April 5-22

Zuzi’s Theater
738 N. 5TH Avenue

The Play

LIDLESS

In 2002, the Pentagon approved a new interrogation technique at Guantanamo Bay called “Invasion of Space by a Female.” Alice followed her orders but doesn’t remember. Bashir was interrogated by her and can’t forget. Today, he’s coming to pay her a visit.

Explosive and gripping, Lidless captures the basic human hunger for revenge and the unyielding desire for redemption. Winner of 2009 Yale Drama Series Prize, 2009 Keene Prize for Literature and developed at the Alley Theatre, Seattle Rep, the Ojai Playwrights Conference, and Yale Repertory Theatre.

‘In a different league altogether is Lidless’-The Herald

‘An excellent new play brought to Edinburgh by HighTide’-The Daily Telegraph

‘A powerful new drama’-Whatsonstage

‘It is a Lidless box of engaging, thought-provoking, intelligent human theatre’-Edinburgh Spotlight

Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig

writer

Is the author of LIDLESS, soon to be produced by Page 73 Productions in New York. It received the Yale Drama Series Award, an Edinburgh Fringe First Award, the Keene Prize for Literature, and the David Calicchio Emerging American Playwright Prize. She has been a finalist for the Blackburn Prize, received residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Ragdale, and the Santa Fe Art Institute, and is under commission from South Coast Rep and Seattle Rep. Her plays have been produced at Trafalagar Studios 2 on the West End, Interact Theatre, and the Contemporary American Theatre Festival; and developed at the Hedgebrook Women Playwrights Festival, Seattle Rep, PlayPenn, the Alley Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, the Playwright’s Foundation and Yale Rep. Frances received an MFA in Writing from the James A. Michener Center for Writers at UT Austin, a BA in Sociology from Brown University, and a certificate in Ensemble Created Physical Theatre from the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre. Her work has been published by Glimmer Train, Methuen Drama, and Yale University Press. Frances was born in Philadelphia, and raised in Northern Virginia, Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing. More information is available at http://www.francesyachucowhig.com/.