Fuel has announced that David Farr’s new play A Dead Body in Taos will receive its world premiere this autumn at Wilton’s Music Hall following preview performances at Bristol Old Vic.
Directed by Rachel Bagshaw the production is part mystery, part sci-fi epic and part love story. Bagshaw is joined by designer Ti Green and Video Designer Sarah Readman.
The cast features Gemma Lawrence as Sam and Eve Ponsonby as Kath. Performances at Wilton’s Music Hall are from 26 October – 12 November.
The body of a 70-year-old woman is found in the New Mexico desert near the town of Taos, a place of pilgrimage for those seeking to embrace alternative forms of living. She is Kath Horvath. On her body the police find a message for her daughter, to whom she has not spoken for many years. The message reads, ‘Sam. Do not grieve. I am not here’.
A Dead Body in Taos tells Sam’s story as she travels to New Mexico to bury her estranged mother. Gradually Sam uncovers her mother’s traumatic past, her attempts to break away from her stifling American small-town upbringing, her protest days in the 60s, her experiments with alternative lifestyles and her lifelong, fruitless quest for freedom which eventually left her with nothing (and, as it turns out, everything) to live for.
And this leads Sam to discover a shocking secret behind the mysterious message her mother left. For in Taos, Kath Horvath has secretly exercised the ultimate right as a consumer – the right to defy death. In the most remarkable way possible.
And it leaves her daughter with a terrible decision to make.
Set against the backdrop of modern America, A Dead Body in Taos is part mystery, part sci-fi epic and part love story, that leaves the audience wondering whether, in the 21st Century, freedom is something we should run to or escape from.
A Dead Body in Taos is co-commissioned by Fuel and Warwick Arts Centre with support from Bristol Old Vic. The work is supported by Arts Council England and produced by Fuel.
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