Lost Teeth which Jona Tarlin, originally titled Tori Please Be Happy, began 15 years ago when Jona saw a picture of a woman with a bandage around her head, Ray-Bans, and a drill going into her skull.
That woman was Amanda Fielding, and the picture was a still from her movie Heartbeat On The Brain, which documents her self-trepanation.
As the work grew past the initial image, it became more about this question of happiness: why do we want it so bad and what would we do it achieve it? For Jona, it became a fascination, the creation of a character both so desperate and so confident that she would place something like a drill into her skull, a practice that with one slip or sneeze could kill her. It was something he would never have the nerve to do, but he wanted to write someone who would.
This play, directed by Kristan Seemel, is an exploration into the sacrifices people make to be happy; we experience so many promises of happiness in our day-to-day lives and we find ourselves on a constant search for a thing we’re supposed to want or have, but always remains out of reach.
Our audience is anyone battling with depression and sadness, as well as those who have beaten that battle, those that feel they’re losing, and the people who love them, who want to know more clearly how that depression and sadness feels.
Katie Reed is a Baltimore-based writer and the marketing manager for Blowout Theatre’s Fringe debut. The Blowout Theatre company is based in New York. For more information on their performances see http://www.blowouttheatre.com/
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