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Omniscience
Omniscience
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Author: Tim Carlson Publisher: Talonbooks (cover image may change) Format: Softcover # of Pages: 95 Pub. Date: 2007 ISBN-10: 0889225621 ISBN-13: 9780889225626 Cast Size: 2 female, 2 male, plus 6 any gender
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About
the Play:
Omniscience is a full-length sci-fi thriller by Tim
Carlson. In this paranoid thriller, Warren struggles to finish a
war documentary while coping with his troubled wife, a military
officer who has just returned from the conflict. Under the pressure
of constant corporate and government surveillance, he might be
cracking up, or is he coming to see the truth of his world?
Omniscience is a mystery set in the future in a politically
reconfigured North America. Documentary film editor Warren Atwell, a
man hired by Channel One Media Corp. to make war propaganda videos,
struggles to finish editing footage shot by his partner, who
disappeared while filming in the battle zone. His wife Lieut. Anna
Larson is a young female officer who has just returned from that very
same battle, suffering from severe post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Her firsthand account of the fracas is decidedly different from the
one captured in Atwell's film. They struggle to find physical and
psychological shelter from constant corporate and government
surveillance. Caught between the fantasy he has concocted for the
masses and the reality that is his life, Atwell becomes increasingly
paranoid and convinced that Big Brother is watching him. He's right.
Based on the classic dystopian themes developed in such works as
Nineteen Eighty Four, Fahrenheit 451 and The
Handmaid's Tale, Omniscience is a futuristic yet topical
tale concerned with the moral, intellectual and psychological
consequences of big brother surveillance on everyday lives.
Omniscience premiered in 2004 at Performance Works on
Granville Island in Vancouver, garnered critical raves, and was
nominated for six Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, including Best
Production. The US premiere was at Stage Left Theatre in Chicago in
2008.
Cast: 2 female, 2 male, plus 6 any gender
What people say:
"This assault on the modern
media makes a clever stab at warning its audiences of what's to come
on this crazy granite planet…. [A] nuanced murder-mystery…."
— Vancouver Sun
"[Omniscience]
is a gritty and complex drama with a clear, important message about…
the censorship of mass media, the lack of true human contact, and the
easy access to information about individuals in our society."
— Canadian Literature
"Like all treatments of
dystopia, Omniscience is provocative, scary and
makes us wonder how far down that particular road we have already
gone." — Vancouver Courier
"Carlson's new dystopian
thriller acquires considerable power—enough to shake up its
audience and make us look at the scary political forces that are
engulfing us. Omniscience is never less than
intelligently provocative." — Georgia Straight
About the Playwright:
Tim Carlson is a Canadian playwright, dramaturge,
journalist, and artistic producer of Theatre Conspiracy. From 2009 to
2016, he was co-curator of Club PuSh with the Push International
Performing Arts Festival. As a journalist, he worked on staff at the
Halifax Daily News, Vancouver Sun, and Georgia
Straight. He holds an MFA in creative writing from the University
of British Columbia, earned a journalism degree at University of
King's College, Halifax, and an BA in English from the University of
Regina.
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