Reporting by Yimou Lee and Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Gabriel Crossley in Beijing; Editing by Clarence FernandezStraymaker and The Abbey Theater In association with Extended Mirrors and Once Off Productions present ‘Elsewhere’ A new opera by Michael Gallen
Straymaker and The Abbey Theater in association with Extended Mirrors and Once Off Productions present ‘Elsewhere’, a new opera by Michael Gallen.
Elsewhere ‘premieres at the Abbey Theater on November 15 with performances November 15-20.
of the radical “Monaghan Asylum Soviet” from 1919.
Addressing the themes of freedom, care and mental illness, Ailleurs explores the imagined future of a forgotten past.
In 1919, the staff of the Monaghan asylum barricaded the doors of job function email database the hospital and declared itself an independent Soviet commune. Their strike brought asylum workers and patients together in collective action, presenting a revolutionary vision of what a care-centric society could look like.
The Soviet moment is in constellation with ours, which occurred during the influenza pandemic of 1918, and at a time when social and geographic boundaries were redrawing. Marked by death and misery, the strikers overcame sectarian divisions to demand humane conditions and equal pay for women and men.
In “Elsewhere”, these events unfold through the visions of Céline, a patient who, decades later, remains “locked” in the Soviet era, believing herself to be at her head. Through his interactions with the charismatic “Inspector of Lunatics”, we cross the lines between fantasy and incarceration.