Modern Love

Description:

In Constance DeJong’s novel Modern Love (1977), text, narratives, characters, and events seamlessly slip in and out of sequence, rendering time fluid and non-linear. The stories are recounted by alternating characters and from various points of view, including those of an unnamed female narrator, a man named Rodrigo Cortes, and two women named Charlotte and Fifi Corday.

This performance at Western Front took place the year following the book’s publication. The set in the Grand Luxe Hall was minimal: a stool lit under a white spotlight. DeJong read excerpts from the book in a slow captivating drawl, occasionally retreating to the shadows. Eventually, she walked over to the piano at the edge of the illuminated stage, and while the piano is never played, it is used as a site for DeJong to sit down and rest her script, taking repose from the spotlight.

Her reading was interspersed with a pre-recorded audio clip of a documentary narrator (David Warrilow from Mabou Mines Theatre) retelling the story of an old mansion built by the ocean in Oregon, as well as clips of music by The Chanels, Bob Dylan, and a commissioned work by Philip Glass titled Modern Love Waltz.