Kings And Queens of Love

evening-length performance
2016
Ars Nova
New York, NY

Kings and Queens of Love is a multimedia meditation on the wedding and funeral of Princess Diana. Video and re-performed text from live telecasts of the two events are cut together chronologically and idiosyncratically, as if we are flipping back and forth between channels. Eery parallels between the two events arise and they become one singular event. An apparition of Donna Summer (played by Jarrett Key) appears to read from the Paget report and perform ‘Once Upon a Time’.

“The venerable cult of Diana never really died out.
It simply went underground for two millennia.
Then came a real, flesh and blood Diana to grace the Earth,
goddess with blue eyes,
overlooking an empire in decline…

docile Diana wearing a windbreaker, eating MacDonald’s
domestic Diana like “Marie Cassat for Calvin Klein”
deathless Diana
goddess of whiteness
who doesn’t date white men anymore
diana goddess of the moon goes into the tunnel and does not come out.
diana goddess of the moon goes into the tunnel and does not come out.”

– excerpt from Kings and Queens of Love