San Fernando Valley - 52°43'N19°42'E PROJECT

STORY
«San Fernando Valley» is a story about pornography – an attempt to observe the transformation within porn films in terms of the tension, history and changes within the 20th century. The starting point of this play was the «Stalag fiction» – books that were fetishizing trauma. They appeared in Israel in the 1960's and rapidly gained extraordinary popularity. Their storyline is very schematic. During World War II – the characters are allied soldiers who have been caught by Nazis. They are put in a prisoner-of-war camp (called the Stalag), and are being tortured and raped by sadistic female Nazis jailers. In the end, the protagonists set themselves free and revenge their torturers by raping and murdering them. However, in reality they feel an extreme sexual attraction to them. What we find the most interesting is the whole process of fetishization of reality and history. Aside from the «Stalags», we are also examining, through performance, some examples of porn films: from silent films in the 1920's to cult pictures from the 1970's: «Deep Throat» and «Café Flesh» – an apocalyptic vision of the world after a nuclear disaster where people divide into two groups: the sexually positive, who are able to have sex and the sexually negative, who are only able to observe. We went as far as researching the contemporary career of the webcam. All of this is linked with the story of the «average and normal» inhabitants of San Fernando Valley – the American capital of the porn industry. Here, the reality is constantly fetishized and pornography becomes a benchmark for reality. Through this, a vicious circle is formed.


ABOUT US
We are not a theatre nor a theatre group, we wouldn’t even like to be one. We named ourselves a «project», because a project is something temporary – something that does not deem to be everlasting. However, if this were to change, we are eager to be surprised. We are all in some form or another associated with the Polish Centre of ASSITEJ and that’s where we all met. Some of us had the opportunity to meet on set of a diploma performance «Quai Ouest» (2008), others are a part of an artistic group Teraz Poliz (established in 2008) and the rest are the cast of «I’m Sorry» (2009), a performance that takes place in Na Woli Theatre. We constantly seek new connections and contacts, we keep involving new people with our project. We are also eager to cooperate internationaly. In January 2010 we decided that we want to create our own piece of theatre. We didn’t quite know what it would entail but that made it more exciting. After 10 months of work, the play «Carson City» was born and its popularity overcame our expectations. The premiere took place in Riga (Latvia) at the «Dirty Drama Festival» in September 2010. We were invited and will participate in the theatre festivals: «Cena Contemporânea – Festival Internacional de Teatro de Brasília» and the «International Theatre Festival of Mont-Laurier» (Quebec/Canada). «Carson City» is the the primary part of a tetralogy which also consists of the sequels: «San Fernando Valley» (2011), «Virginia Town» (2012), «New Heaven» (2013). Believing in what we do and enjoying it is of great importance to us.