Asher Hartman’s LA experimental theater company
During the Covid-19 pandemic, Gawdafful National theater, stopped on its way to perform at The Lab in San Francisco, reimagined our six part play about molecular white supremacy as six films about violence to the self, to the other, to the divine. These films were commissioned by The Lab, to which we later returned to perform a re-mixed, reduced, re-masticated version of our plays. You can watch all six films, a panel discussion about our theater, and visit The Lab here.
Premiered at The Lab, San Francisco, 2021.
Jasmine Orpilla, Adrian Cruz, Jacqueline Wright, Philip Littell, Paul Outlaw, Michael Bonnabel, Joe Seely, Zut Lors
Asher Hartman, Ian Byers-Gamber, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Jinha Song, Adrian Cruz
“Internalized white supremacy, buttressed with ‘an unwillingness to come emotionally clean,’ […] filtered through the devious tricksterism of elves […] The camera brings us so much closer to the performers that the performances acquire the casualness, accessibility and immediacy of confessionals”
— Michael Fox, KQED 🔗
→ Zut Lors
Jasmine Orpilla, performer, composer, singer, and pre-colonial martial artist, plays Chet, a duende, a slayer of hidden folk in one of a six-part short film series about the psychological effects of white supremacy. In interviews, actions, and written text, Orpilla describes the spirit of the times where those who must avenge injustice prepare.
Writer, director, interviewer: Asher Hartman. Featuring: Jasmine Orpilla, in their own words and performing written text. Shot by: Jasmine Orpilla under the direction of Asher Hartman and lighting director Chu-Hsuan Chang. Outdoor-indoor photography by Ian Byers-Gamber. Father sculpture by Brian Getnick. Handcrafted masks by Joe Seely. Titles by Jinha Song.
→ Asher Hartman, Brian Getnick, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Ian Byers-Gamber, Jasmine Orpilla, Jinha Song, Joe Seely
Jacqueline Wright plays a shape-shifting elf, the product of an alchemical mixture of internalized misogyny, white supremacy and sexual repression; abuse, Hollywood and delusion.
