Created by Charles Campbell, October 2014

Photo EX by Charles Campbell 2014
Performers: Charles Campbell, Annie Enneking, Megan Mayer, Billy Mullaney
Lights: Heidi Eckwall
Sound: Elliott Durko Finch
Suit building: Alison Heimstead
Production Manager: Blake Bolan

What was EX?

It was not an epic story of human struggle.
It was not a political parable for our times.
It was not about you and your family.
It didn’t speak from the heart.
It didn’t make you feel better about yourself.
It didn’t stay long.

Part theater and part dance, EX followed an unusual formal structure deriving from Radiohead’s song Codex. The performance substituted a theatrical image for each musical image, converting a 4’45” sonic experience into a 60 minute performance. The structure of the song gave the performance a unique rhythm to carry its evocative images.

Devised with the collaboration of some of the most exciting interdisciplinary performers in town, EX developed out of a year in which Campbell lost his mother to Alzheimer’s and his sister to cancer. The creation of EX forewent confessional or memoir formats to explore themes of family, memory, and loss, placing these themes in an ordinary room, giving them a home alongside the bedroom door and the family portrait. Don’t worry, EX was an entertaining encounter with death.

Created for the Thingsmakers Union Hall in the California Building.


Other Works