The Orphans at La Mama through Dec 12th

Karina Casiano and Daniel Irizarry

The Orphans, presented by La MaMa E.T.C., a new work by Karina Casiano, performed and directed by Karina Casiano and Daniel Irizarry is a physical futuristic exploration of the terrorism of disconnection from natural impulses. Casiano and Irizarry create a world of physical anxiety where people are catalogued and identified by DNA samples. Both play terrorists bombing the pharmaceutical companies that sedate their mounting anxieties over the increasingly disconnected modern world where carnal pleasure, music, and cigarettes are forbidden.

Deliciously betrayed by their natural impulses bodies rebel by doing the forbidden. . . making contact.

Karina Casiano and Daniel Irizarry

At the beginning of the performance, Casiano, contained or holed up in steel and plexiglass phone booth (minus the phone) plays a female liaison to terrorists who encounters a pill addicted new recruit (Irizarry). In the fashion of robots and junkies both twitch, convulse but fail to control their physical impulses. She, literally climbing the walls of her incasement. Eventually both risk their safety and identities to connect, a man who has not yet given up on life seducing a woman into exploring what it means to live in a dying world.

The story is told through death defying contact improvisation with walls, set pieces, and finally each other.

Both performers stunning and minutely specific physical control is consistent and equally impressive throughout the performance.

Rehearsals and script were developed through filmed physical improvisation and later edited together.

THE ORPHANS
December 2 - 12, Thursday - Saturday at 10:00 pm and Sunday at 5:30 pm.
La MaMa E.T.C. is located at 74A East 4th Street (between 2nd & 3rd Aves -- accessible from the F train at 2nd Ave). Tickets are $15, available at 212-475-7710 or www.lamama.org. For more info, visit www.lacriatura.org.

Karina Casiano is the creator of three solo shows and two full length plays that have been presented in New York at venues including PS 122, HERE, Chashama on 42nd Street, and the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College. She has collaborated with The Flying Machine, International WOW, Spanish Repertory Theater and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater, among others. A graduate of the University of Puerto Rico, Casiano premiered her first one-woman show in 1999, touring it to Puerto Rico, Cuba, Ecuador, Perú, Chile, and Argentina. In 2005, she was nominated for a New York Latin ACE award as Best Comedy Actress for The Dog in the Manger at Spanish Repertory Theater. In 2006, she premiered her first play with La Criatura, the site-specific Silence Is Health/Silencio es Salud. Earlier this year, her solo musical Rootless: La No-Nostalgia was nominated for a 2010 IT Award for Outstanding Production of a Musical. For more info, visit www.karinacasiano.com.

Daniel Irizarry's work has been praised in the US and internationally, including Russia, China, Japan, Europe, and the Caribbean. He is currently collaborating with renowned director Andrei Serban on Love's Labour Lost and Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land, directed by Mabou Mines’ Terry O'Reilly for The New School Eugene Lang College. Irizarry has performed with Kevin Augustine and Lone Wolf Tribe (Bride, 2009 UNIMA Citation of Excellence); Eduardo Machado (Crocodile Eyes), Terry O’Reilly and Jane Catherine Shaw (Peter and the Wolf); Andrei Serban, Niky Wolcz and James Levine (Benvenuto Cellini and Faust for Met Opera;) Rachel Dickstein (Betrothed and Septimus and Clarissa written by Ellen McLaughlin). He holds an MFA in Acting from Columbia University (the first Puerto Rican student to be accepted into the program) and a BA from the University of Puerto Rico. In 2000, he received the Best New Actor award by the Theater Critics’ Circle in Puerto Rico. Irizarry is part of the MFA theater faculty at the Columbia University and of the Eugene Lang College The New School for Liberal Arts where he teaches Acting, and is a Mabou Mines RAP 2011 Artist in Residency. For more information go to: www.daniel-irizarry.com.