KATIE CRUEL
Katie, an undocumented young musician, recently arrived in the city, spends her daily life surviving. Despite fleeding the conservative rural community where she grew up, the traumas of her youth keep following her, and she suffers from acute disassociation and quasi-psychotic episodes.
One night, after a gig, an older man approaches her in the street, in an alleyway lined with abandoned flats and offices. Their unexpected meeting, the night that follows and his attempts to help Katie, lay bare the chasms between generations, genders and classes. Eventually, Katie realises that extreme action is required if she wishes to continue to survive in the hopeless killing machine that is the Western World.
KATIE CRUEL intersectionally analyses the archetypes of victim, perpetrator and observer in connection to trauma, age, class and gender. Utilising dialogue, and harsh Scots-Irish folk-drone, a rough, lonely and tender portrait of a young woman is sketched, scarred by the intergenerationality of her trauma, seeking some kind of salvation and prepared to take any action required.
After SHEATH AND KNIFE, KATIE CRUEL is the second project in a long line of works directly inspired by the socio-political context of Mackenna’s upbringing in Scotland, and their deep love and fascination for Scots-Irish murder ballads and rural culture, storytelling and mythology.
Premièred on the 18th of May 2023 at Frascati Theatre in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
CONCEPT, DIRECTION, SCENOGRAPHY, LIGHTING DESIGN, COMPOSITION AND SOUND DESIGN Erasmus Mackenna
PERFORMANCE AND LIVE MUSIC Gerardjan Rijnders, Marit Hooijschuur & Erasmus Mackenna
TEXT AND DRAMATURGY Roel Pronk
COSTUME DESIGN Julia Diepstraten
MUSICAL DIRECTION Simme Wouters
PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Tosca Schutte
TECHNICAL PRODUCTION AND OPERATION Attila Németh
PRODUCTION PHOTOGRAPHY Bart Grietens
PRODUCED BY Frascati Productions