Photograph by Eric Richmond
Screwmachine/Eyecandy
Description
It’s America’s favorite game show, but tonight the rules are a little different. Or are they? Haven’t we seen this before? Can two average contestants from the heartland figure it all out before it’s too late?
Production Info
Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
Press Quotes
“If the political-advertising principle of equal time were applied to entertainment programming, every game show would be followed by SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY. While the game show as a metaphor for the horrors of consumer culture is somewhat overdone, in the hands of CJ Hopkins the conceit is nothing short of a blistering revelation. Hopkins’s body of work owes a huge debt to the absurdists and so manages to blast beyond the merely political or allegorical to the existential. Bits of GODOT and NO EXIT seem present in all his plays.” —Trav S D, Time Out New York
“If SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY, playwright CJ Hopkins’s latest indictment of American crassness and overconsumption, serves as any indication, our country hasn’t learned much … Hopkins’s sharp-toothed satire …” —Alexis Soloski, Village Voice
“As a metaphor for the unaccountable, bullying, shape-changing and fear-mongering face of power in our increasingly media-driven consumer democracies, it could hardly be more potent. One of the angriest and most chilling pieces of political theatre on this year’s Fringe.” —Joyce MacMillan, The Scotsman
“SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY starts out as one of those eyes-and-teeth American TV game shows but rapidly descends into something much blacker and almost surreal as America’s relationship with consumerism and the media is unerringly skewered.” —Robert Dawson Scott, The Times
“The use of the game show as metaphor for what is politely called the American condition is not a new concept … The premise has been used in films such as The Truman Show and Magnolia. CJ Hopkins has made brazen use of this metaphor to create a vicious piece of agit prop … Not only does SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY beat its audiences harder, but it contains fragmentary glimpses of America’s vastness that leave you breathless.” —Tim Abrahams, The Guardian
Author
CJ HopkinsCJ Hopkins is a playwright, director, and author of miscellaneous other works. His early plays and experimental stage-texts were first produced Off-Off Broadway during the 1990s. Since 2001, his work has been commissioned, produced and has toured internationally at theaters and festivals including Riverside Studios (London), 59E59 Theaters (New York), Belvoir St. Theatre (Sydney), Traverse Theatre and Assembly (Edinburgh), the Du Maurier World Stage Festival (Toronto), the Adelaide Fringe Festival, Brighton Festival, Noorderzon Festival (the Netherlands), among many others. His playwriting awards include the 2002 First of the Scotsman Fringe Firsts in Edinburgh (HORSE COUNTRY), the 2004 Best of the Adelaide Fringe Festival (HORSE COUNTRY) and a 2005 Scotsman Fringe First (SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY). He was a 1994 Drama League of New York Developing Artist fellow and a 1995 Mabou Mines Resident Artist/Jerome Foundation fellow. His plays (HORSE COUNTRY, SCREWMACHINE/EYECANDY, THE EXTREMISTS) are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (Methuen Drama) and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. He lives in Berlin, Germany, where he works as a freelance editor, translator and script consultant.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 6/1/2007 |
| Pages | 80 |
| ISBN | 9780881453386 |
Special Notes
World premiere by Scamp Theatre at the Edinburgh Theater Festival
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypublishing.com