Abzu is the name of an underground cavern where you can find sweet, fresh water. Abzu is the name of the god of those waters. Some say the father of all the gods. Long before heaven or earth or humans, when Abzu mingled his fresh water with the salt water of his consort the goddess Tiamat in primeval times, new gods were born. Abzu plotted with his lover and with the mist to kill these children, but the kids wised up and either put him to death, or put him into a very long and deep sleep which is mostly the same thing. Abzu is a god of mingling, mixing, regretting, and family. We are mostly water, and we are all these other things, too.
Megan Cohen says of her play THIRST TRAP, inspired by the myth of Abzu: “A family made out of water lives in a bucket. Someone stares into it, dips her fingers into it, blows bubbles into it with a straw, and eventually drinks all of it. Sip by sip, she absorbs the members of this formless and possibly imaginary family into her own real body in a comic parable about yearning, quenching, sacrifice, and how we navigate our contradictory needs in the context of fluids.” She is going to do it herself, so that she can write things into the script that she would never ask another performer to do.
ABZU, or THIRST TRAP by Megan Cohen
Directed by Megan Cohen
Staged Reading on October 12, 2017 at the EXIT Theatre
Megan Cohen (Performer)
Called “a ruthless innovator” (SF Weekly), “funny, erudite, and poignant” (Poetry Monthly), and “one insightful and confident woman with a devilish sense of humor” (Huffington Post), playwright and performer Megan Cohen was named a 2014 Theater Bay Area “Eye On” Emerging Artist honoree. In over 100 readings, workshops, and productions, her scripts have popped up in theaters across the U.S. and the world. She’s currently developing the full-length drama Truest, which has had workshops and readings at SF’s Custom Made Theatre Company, NYC’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and at Berkeley Rep through their “Ground Floor” incubator. She also works as a dramaturg and opera librettist. Website: www.megancohen.com Twitter: @WayBetterThanTV
This is Cohen’s sixth year as a festival writer (2011 Orion, 2012 Zeus, 2013 Odysseus, 2014 Centaur, 2016 Orpheus). Her solo show “Take Me Home: a One-Woman Odyssey” became the first full international production to originate at the Olympians Festival, and her play “Joe Ryan” appears in the SF Olympians “Heavenly Bodies” anthology.
The image of Abzu was create by Christine Keating.