Angels in Paradise: Imagining Hell and Its Demons from the Inside Out

Abstract

Theatre, at its core, is inherently an inquisition into human nature and life itself. Through its abstractions, a mirror world may be created through which an audience may analyze behavior, motivation, and consequence in a way that it is not afforded in everyday life. Because of this mimesis, plays are a useful vehicle through which complex, universal questions may be asked. Not only this, but plays become an important mirror to the artist’s own soul. A writer uses his, her, or their own psyche’s ether to precipitate a physical manifestation of emotion, experience, and memory. While this project originally aimed to explore the underbelly of America and the indigestible aspects of Americana, it became an exploration into the self, the self within the context of the world, and the self becoming the self.