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 The Benevolent Institution (2015)

Jessie Marino : concept/composition/stage — Kara Riopelle : direction . — Chris Giamo : Videography . — Constantin Basica: Video Tech

Performed by Bonnie Crocker, Jessie Marino, Nette Worthey and Kara Riopelle

The themes of The Benevolent Institution revolve around power dynamics between adults and the children in their care,  and the role that repetition, music, and games have in the psychological processing of a traumatic event. These themes are investigated through the relationship between the music, staged events based on the story from Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw, and video projections of abstracted images from inside and outside the home space. 

On stage, the musical composition and theatrical events unfold through the performative manipulation of childrenʼs toys, physical gesture and cut-&-paste text from the archives of the Governesses Benevolent Institute - a London based institute founded in 1841 to provide a home for ill or elder Governesses. 

Through this deconstruction of the written, musical and theatrical elements of the Turn of the Screw an on-stage world is created where responsibility is suspended, memory is reinvented, and trauma is subverted. The audience is then left to unpack a work of speculative fiction guided by unreliable narrators.