It’s been ten years since Banana Bag & Bodice’s beloved experimental production SPACE//SPACE made waves in the New York theater scene (“WAITING FOR GODOT in space”, raved the New York Times). Now the married performance artist duo who created that infamous work are squeezed into the first wave of pandemic lockdown: alone in their attic, they rehash their claustrophobic container tale of two brothers stuck in a space capsule – but this time performing for a bank of empty seats. The play, and their relationship with their eight-year-old son, Zoom-schooling in the house below, merge into a semi-permeable dream about marriage, parenting, performance, and the elasticity of time in the age of Coronavirus.
SPACE//SPACE is a hybrid cinematic collaboration between writer/director Alex Harvey and Banana Bag & Bodice (aka Jason Craig and Jessica Jelliffe). A hall of narrative mirrors that keeps revealing and then hiding its subjects behind continually crumbling fourth walls, the film ponders the nature of relationship in isolation and the ways in which families perform for each other – and fail to perform for each other. Ultimately a grief cry made by artists and lovers, SPACE//SPACE laments an era where aliveness and physical connection are endangered species.