2011
From and interview by Matilda Lee with the writers and performers Geoff Sobelle and Charlotte Ford in the Ecologist:
Flesh & Blood and Fish & Fowl is about two office workers becoming feral. In this dark comedy, two office workers begin a seemingly typical day of paper-pushing and other depressing office gestures to pass the time. Anyone who has had suffered a boring day at the office will feel sympathy for them, as frustrated and pathetic as they are.
Jerry plays tic-tac-toe with post-it notes while Rhoda privately indulges in a bag of crisps, weighing each one individually before carefully putting it in her mouth.
The power struggle between them - Rhoda is an administrative assistant ("I am not a secretary," she yells) Jerry, a power-hungry mid-manager culminates in an office tryst in a wheelie bin.
And then strange things start to happen. Grass shoots through the filing cabinet, a badger appears on top of the shelves and Jerry announces, "Rhoda, there's a horse in the office" a ridiculous phrase in itself and it is clearly not a horse, but a big-horned sheep.
Jerry gets attacked by a bear, Rhoda is showered with foliage and they both are eventually swallowed up by nature, which seems, in an act of revenge, to have come back to reclaim the office space. The whole thing is absurd, but the ecological themes stand out. There are obvious parallels with human society's relationship with nature. In a larger sense, it's a comedy about human extinction.
Geoff Sobelle and Charlotte Ford are Philadelphia-based theatre artists.
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