“Audacious, thought-provoking and frequently hilarious … a tightly wound complex of existential postulations, metaphysical ruminations and poop jokes.”
Eye Weekly
Dr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknownst to himself, cloning himself, creating Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall madly in love, fall in science and fail to make a baby.
The cast consists of the two boxheads, who also play two disembodied narrators. The conversation between the four voices, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games and musical numbers, they discover that all their feelings come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don’t be so hard on yourself.
Critical Praise for [boxhead]
“Comically absurd, maddingly baffling in form and meaning but solid in execution, [boxhead] is experimental theatre at its finest.”
— The Toronto Star
Excerpt
Dr. Actions: This stupid, stupid, stupid experiment; we’re never going to clone an echo; we’re always going to have to rely on space, space, space!
Dr. Thinking: It’s not the end of the world.
Dr. Actions: It’s the end of my world — I’ve dedicated my life to this work!
Dr. Thinking: Do you think you’re the only one in this room?
Dr. Actions: Well, frankly, with this box on my head, I can’t tell.
Dr. Thinking: Well, you’re not! My life has been consumed by this work no less than yours, and I’m as frustrated as you are.
Dr. Actions: There are no applications for failure, don’t you get it? You can’t use it for compost, or as a tax write off, or to wipe your ass — you just have to fucking wallow in it! Failures! Go! Nowhere!
Dr. Thinking: We’re not failures!
Dr. Actions: Listen to this. (Holds up petri dish.) That’s the sound of failure. And this is the sound of failure. (He throws it onto the ground.)
Dr. Thinking: Thoughtless, don’t.
Dr. Actions: And this is the sound of failure! (He mimes the pushing over of a huge shelf of equipment.)
Dr. Thinking: Thoughtless, please!
Dr. Actions: And this is the sound of failure! (He pushes over another shelf.)
Dr. Thinking: Thoughtless, think!
Dr. Actions: And this is the sound of failure! (He pushes over another shelf.)
Dr. Thinking: That’s years of work!
Dr. Actions: It’s years of failure! (He clears off an imaginary counter of beakers with an enraged sweep of the arm.) I’m a boxheaded fucking moron and that’s all I’ll ever be and if you had any fucking brains you’d realize the same about yourself! Only a failure like me would hang around a failure like you!
Dr. Thinking: I don’t need you to tell me I’m a failure! You think the world is sitting around waiting for us to clone an echo? Well, they’re not! There are more important things in life than the sound of your own voice.
Dr. Actions: What’s more important than the power of speech?
Dr. Thinking: The power of love to make a baby.
Dr. Actions: (Venomously.) And you’re a failure at that too!
Dr. Thinking: (He’s utterly horrified.) You’re evil. (He starts to weep.)
Dr. Actions: My god, I’m sorry.