Listen to a podcast of a post-show discussion with musician/performer Cynthia Hopkins and playwright Craig Lucas, recorded live at Soho Rep on May 20, 2010, as part of their FEED series. This conversation took place immediately following a performance of Hopkins’ performance entitled Truth: A Tragedy. Read an interview with her by Annie-B Parsons in BOMB’s Summer Issue.
Cynthia Hopkins (genitor of the band Gloria Deluxe, the Accidental Trilogy, and a multitude of other notable artistic ventures and triumphs), latest work grew out of her love/hate relationship with Greek Tragedies and the writing she was doing while moving her ailing father into assisted living six years ago. The result is a document unflinchingly genuine and true, if filtered through a highly personal narrative. Through song, dance, and text Hopkins’ conjures Parkinson’s disease, a hoarder’s nest, notions of suppressed homosexuality and a classroom full of ten-year-olds chanting jump to a man on a ledge, with the get-up of a clown and the feet of a Fred Astair. Uncomfortable, hilarious and, tragic, maybe, heroic, definitely, Truth: A Tragedy has you squirming even as you laugh, laughing even as you squirm, and softening every time Ms. Hopkins sings.