“the experiential onslaught of an Asher Hartman play doesn’t diminish upon repeats. It grows into something more powerful, the way poetry learned by heart does”
— Neha Choksi, Riting 🔗
The Dope Elf (2019-2021)
Elves, trolls, magicians, and infectious agents of Europe’s historical disease come to life in the form of ordinary American folk who inhabit a landscape of psychic pain set upon the structures of white supremacy and violence.
Gawdafful National Theater’s most ambitious piece to date, The Dope Elf is a six hour tragic-comic saga of the lives of American otherworldly-everyday people whose souls have been deformed by the legacies of white supremacy. Meaninglessness, dissociation, unsatisfied lusting for power, partial orgasms and workplace blah underscore this serial jaunt through white power’s psychic legacy.
Written and directed by Asher Hartman
Set design for the Yale Union performances by Nina Caussa, Aubree Lynn, Nic Gaby, Brian Getnick, and Trulee Hall. Robes and masks by Brian Getnick, constructed by Nikii Henry. Stands by Mathew Timmons. Day costumes by Sofia Benito. Lighting by Chu-Hsuan Chang. Production and stage management by Roz Naimi.
Performances:
Yale Union, Portland, OR, September—October 2019
The Lab, San Francisco, CA, October 2021. Live and in a series of 6 films made during before and just right after the first vaccines.
Creatives:
Brian Getnick, Nikii Henry, Aubree Lynn, Nina Caussa, Nic Gaby, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Roz Naimi, Matthew Timmons, Patrick Ballard
“…reflections of unstable identities locked in a struggle for power, whether magical or political.”
— Martha Daghlian, Oregon Arts Watch 🔗
“As Hartman and the Gawdafful National Theatre uncomfortably and self-reflexively merged the scripted and improvisational, ‘The Dope Elf’ transgressed the boundaries of theatrical space and the unspoken ugliness within us all.”
— Genevieve Quick, 48 Hills 🔗
The Dope Elf: Organized Around the Erotics of Doing You In
THE LAB, SAN FRANCISCO 2021
Disavowal, disgust, dissociation, delectation and death, the slime nectar of change, are the material of a performance that teeters between a theatrical work and a vigil for theater that can no longer hold our grief. Five actors from the original production of The Dope Elf able to travel during the pandemic convene to eat the sick body of their sprawling film and performance series, a satiric trek through the ordinary enactments of white supremacy, power, and delight in harm. Select parts are of the body are chosen. The belly, the groin, and the armpit are consumed in an agreement to tear at the gelatinous surface that protects actor from character. Asking “Why theater now?” Gawdafful National Theater allows for the seepage of the actors’ lived experience into the theater company’s rehearsed text, risking a theatrical experience that cannot be contained.
→ Nic Gaby
