ANSWERING THE ECHO
Answering the Echo follows the dilemma of Dora who pretends not to notice a message she finds written on Phil's back from "the other woman." Dora continues their active (and suddenly more passionate) sex life so that she can secretly write back to her rival on Phil's skin.
In the writing of Answering the Echo I hoped the dialogue would inspire directors and encourage actors to create theatre that needed only a minimum of physical design elements, enabling the players to build as much of the world of the play as possible with their performances. I focused on a text with a clean and clear intention that was still open enough for intriguing (and hopefully comic) affairs. The style of an early production used a simple direct audience address: a couple stood downstage and dramatized what had recently happened to them. The director of a second production placed the action at a restaurant table from the seats of which the couple shared their tale; the audience members served as the dinner companions witnessing the highly intimate confessions of the friends – the characters onstage. Both variations on the themes in the play harvested the comic elements of the allure of infidelity, and the power of jealousy to drive the potency of yearning.