KIM A. TOLMAN DESIGN

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VIATICUM
The Carnal Table
Tragic Farce In Ten Fits

Written & Directed by Helen Pau
Scenic Design by Kim A. Tolman
Technical Direction by Gilbert Johnson
Lighting Design by Stephen Siegel
Motion Graphic Design by Isabellla Rocca
Costume Design by Eva Garcia

On a set out of a Gothic fairytale (designed by Kim A. Tolman)—
a crypt with a crazy rose window above, a hovering eye and the Mona Lisa with her face half covered by a hand as she gazes out over the audience, a chessboard below as flooring—Saul Strange (David Usner, himself a skydiver) writhes on his seeming deathbed, rigged with parachute lines, in an upbeat final agony, attended by his family with painted faces...
– BERKELEY DAILY PLANET

Welcome to the succulent hell of our unrepentant womanizer Saul Strange and his wife Jean Beatrice, a sacred niche where past is prologue and ghosts are primers of consciousness! Ghosts of an unforgiving past and ghosts of an implacable present! Ghost that chastise, ghosts that seduce, ghosts that give us a tragic sense of life -- along with our chance of salvation! Ghosts that poke our conscience, perfect our souls. How grareful we are to our ghosts -- in our great gothic cathedral! And building the great cathedral had never been more pressing in the history of our life! To build ir from scratch -- to raise it from the excrement, with artists equally struck by the compelling splendor of the useless! To imbue its towers and vaults with a symphony of ghosts; to etch into the great mosiac window a lasting image -- to serve up a cornucopia beneath it and eat supper on the csarnal table -- is our goal! Thank you all for joining us in this harvest of ghosts at Mr. Strange's birthday-celebration-turned-last-supper! There might be a gargoyle perched in the wings thinking our most unspeakable thought for us, thank this holy terror as well. Now enter folks, into this temple of memory and renewal!