Conceptually
Directed by Jay Ruby Devised and
Choreographed by the Ensemble and
Editorially Directed by Varrick Grimes
A twisted physical comedy
with live instrumentation and athletic physicality spins a wickedly inventive
tale of surreal worlds and real nightmares…
The Carpetbag Brigade adds a jungian twist with a dash of PTSD to Jack
and the Beanstalk. You don’t know Jack is
the surreal tragic comedy of an alcoholic dead man and the shadow of his wild
dysfunctional family. Inspired by Robert Bly’s The Sibling Society, this funny nightmarish fairy tale excavates
the echo of trauma created by the casual and constant contact soldiers have
with war. Young Jack grows up in a
world overshadowed by the ghosts of his grandfather’s death from alcohol and
war-induced Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Trying to make sense of a mother
who sings disturbing lullabies, teachers who eat children and a puzzling world
of contradictory voices and dreams emerging from the grave, Jack plunges into a
parallel inner world. Here, amidst a crew of grotesque characters shipwrecked
between myth and reality, for whom life is a struggle not to become monsters,
Jack penetrates the upside-down fairy–tale world enveloping him.
With original and traditional music played live onstage by the
performers and a rich tapestry of objects and poetry, YOU DON’T KNOW JACK is a theatrical response to the moral and emotional
wars that soldiers return home with. It invites us to dig in the dirt of our
own imaginations and plant new seeds, stories and songs.
“The immensely talented cast of
five are such strong performers that they imbue their dark,
deliciously odd
tale of a dead alcoholic and his messed-up family with a hypnotic intensity;
it's impossible not to enter their dysfunctional, fragmented worlds”
Tina Jackson, The Metro,
Glasgow, Scotland
The Carpetbag Brigade will be touring You don’t know Jack through California and Arizona in the Winter
and Spring of 2010. Known for touring their acrobatic stilt productions around
the globe, this will be the first tour The Carpetbag Brigade conducts in which
their indoor character and story driven theatrical work is featured.
