Yana Ross - Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - 22 Types of Loneliness

Yana Ross maintains that her love for Wallace’s thought is the starting point for this production. David Foster Wallace’s language in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men sets the stage for live sex and mindfuck, and thereby encounters a hard-core question: how far can hideous men and toxic masculinity go? Wallace locates dehumanisation, humanity’s greatest tragedy, in the private sphere where no one sees it. The painful experiences go deep. Cemented by shame, there is no language capable of overcoming them.

Yana Ross’ production dares to challenge catharsis with grotesque means. In her piece, Wallace’s texts appear as a montage, devoid of linear narrative. The masculinities that Wallace described so bluntly and directly are not simply represented, but performatively alienated to the point of absurdity. Everyday life is presented in an unusual, distorted manner, such that the abyss that lurks behind supposed normality becomes visible. Ross manages this without censorship, seeking to transcend aesthetic boundaries and using the grotesque as a stylistic device. Her means also include the explicit representation of live sex, as a performance by two professional porn actors.