WHEN STORY STOPS, THE LEAK BEGINS is a true hybrid: a sequence of “poem-scripts” in three acts comprised of skaz-inflected dialogue, influenced by writing and performance traditions ranging from Grotowski / Chaikin through Burroughs-Acker-Herrera into more recent efforts by Roberto Bolaño (as prose) and Rodrigo Toscano (as hybrid poetry). The poem-script format provides structure while voicing, pace and character dynamics offer a range of angles to approach meaning, as the text embodies that enduring tension between writing and physicality in which, as Eugenio Barba put it, “only the actions are alive, but only the words remain.” In Hollywood shorthand, WHEN STORY STOPS, THE LEAK BEGINS could best be described as a spiritual adventure story in which Six Characters in Search of an Author jump headlong without a net into a Canterbury Tales style quest across a dreamscape merging scenography from Waiting for Godot with digital shards of Bladerunner in a rowdy and irreverent Voyage to Arcturus.
