The Feast of the Hungry Ghosts
Recovering the Earth Within
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You meet them everywhere.
In the park, the subway, the street corner. They brush past you, but their eyes do not meet yours. Their voice sounds like dust. Their lips are too red or too pale Their mouths open too wide or not at all. There they are, the hungry ghosts, all around us. They are you and me. |
"Addiction is another name for longing," says Mer, one of the characters in the play. Most of us know addiction in one way or another. As citizens of the Western developed world, for example, we tend to consume too much (those of us who can) while Earth’s resources dwindle. And yet, consumerism notwithstanding, we are rarely sated, yearning for something that defies description, while the planet titters on the brink.
The play, which takes place during the meeting of addicts, investigates the predicament of addiction on the level of the individual and collective soul. It attempts to uncover the inner roots of the perpetual ‘never enough.’ And this is when they appear, the demon-doctors, the hungry ghosts of ancient iconography often represented with enormous stomachs and needle-thin necks. During the course of the play, they speak to us through the characters. We engage them. We find out about what’s eating them (and us.) They try to tell us what they really and deeply need. As we listen to them and to each other, the Earth makes herself known as our own, deep ecological identity, the living biosphere resounding with memory of loss and hope for what’s still possible. She can’t feed us the way she once could. Still, she’s preparing the feast. You’re invited.
The play, which takes place during the meeting of addicts, investigates the predicament of addiction on the level of the individual and collective soul. It attempts to uncover the inner roots of the perpetual ‘never enough.’ And this is when they appear, the demon-doctors, the hungry ghosts of ancient iconography often represented with enormous stomachs and needle-thin necks. During the course of the play, they speak to us through the characters. We engage them. We find out about what’s eating them (and us.) They try to tell us what they really and deeply need. As we listen to them and to each other, the Earth makes herself known as our own, deep ecological identity, the living biosphere resounding with memory of loss and hope for what’s still possible. She can’t feed us the way she once could. Still, she’s preparing the feast. You’re invited.