
"Tullock, who wrote Nothing Can Take You From the Hand of God with Frank Winters, introduces Frances in her preferred environment, a cozy book talk with an easy interlocutor, where she can opine in a measured, NPR-ready alto about her memoir of the trauma she endured growing up in Kentucky. But soon, the action glitches. Frances's literary agent is calling, and the church she discussed in her book is threatening to sue."
"Tullock plays every role in the play and soon zips into the agent's persona, talking fast, chewing gum. She's also, in director Jared Mezzocchi's staging, recording herself live on video, her face projected onto the screens that surround her. They are glitchy, too. As the agent rambles, the cameras onstage freeze Tullock's face at unflattering moments, and the screens behind her display a series of grotesques. That's just the beginning of the feeling that you're watching something unstable, distorted, and more than a little haunted."
Frances is a neurotic ex-Evangelical queer woman who has built herself up with the armor of a coastal intellectual. She appears in a cozy book-talk setting to promote a memoir about trauma from growing up in Kentucky, but the action quickly glitches as a literary agent calls and a church threatens to sue. The performer plays every role and records herself live on video, with projections that freeze and display grotesques. Frances returns to Louisville for a book release and encounters figures who complicate her past narratives, revealing ambiguity, possible monsters, and performances of memory.
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