In Performance: The National Theater of the United States of America’s The Golden Veil (NYC)

The National Theater of the United States of America’s
The Golden Veil
The Kitchen
May 31-June 16 @8pm
Tickets $20

The Golden Veil is a gothic parlor spectacle that tells, in multiple iterations, the familiar tale of a poor shepherdess seduced and abandoned by a would-be inventor. Part pastoral ballet and part backwoods jamboree, part Punch-and-Judy show and part forlorn testimony, part bleak exposé of the lives of the rural poor and part celebration of their lovely handicrafts, The Golden Veil conjures the intimacy of a séance and the abandon of a hootenanny.

In the NTUSA’s inimitable style, The Golden Veil recounts a violent and lusty revenge fantasy, unfolding via the traditional domestic arts of reading aloud, singing along, making faces, charades and parlor tricks. Through the telling and retelling of the story, the play explores the ways that we use narrative to render the painful picturesque while it prods the perverse underbelly of our nostalgia for “simpler times.”

The Golden Veil is performed by Jesse Hawley, Matt Kalman, Ean Sheehy and Maggie Robinson, with help from Normandy Sherwood and Tavish Miller. Music performed by James Stanley, Nick Demopoulos, Catherine McRae and Jeremy Wilms. The creative team includes Normandy Sherwood (writer and designer), James Stanley (director and designer), Jesse Hawley (composer and designer), Ben Kato (lighting designer), Cooper Gardner (sound design), Jody Elff (sonic manipulations), Nick Demopoulos (music director), Tavish Miller (assistant director) and Kate Dial (stage manager).