EAT THE DOCUMENT

Composed by JOHN GLOVER
libretto by KELLEY ROURKE
BASED ON THE NOVEL BY DANA SPIOTTA
Developed with AND directed by Kristin Marting
music direction by Mila henry

“It is easy for a life to become unblessed. Mary, in particular, understood this. Her mistakes – and they were legion – were not lost on her. She knew all about the undoing of a life…”
— Eat the Document

Based on a bold and moving novel about a fugitive radical from the 1970s who has lived in hiding for twenty-five years, Eat the Document is a story of activism, sacrifice, and the cost of living a secret.

In the heyday of the seventies underground, Bobby DeSoto and Mary Whittaker – passionate, idealistic, and in love – design a series of radical protests against the Vietnam War. When one action goes wrong, the course of their lives is forever changed. The two must erase their past, forge new identities, and never see one another again.

Now it is the 1990s. Mary lives in the suburbs with her fifteen-year-old son, Jason, who spends hours immersed in the music of his mother’s generation. She has no idea where Bobby is, whether he is alive or dead. A few towns away, an aging hippie called Nash presides over an anarchist bookstore, drawing the disaffected youth of the next generation into a shifting series of “groups” and “collectives.” Miranda, unlike some of her peers, takes Nash seriously, possibly more seriously than he takes himself.

Shifting between the protests in the 1970s and the consequences of those choices in the 1990s, Eat the Document explores the connection between the two eras — their language, technology, music, and activism.

The sound of 'ETD' draws from the voice-driven choral textures of the Beach Boys' 'Smile', the orchestral sweep of Joni Mitchell albums in the 70s, the psychedelic energy of George Clinton’s folk rock band Funkadelic, and alternative rock on 90s college and indie radio stations. All of this melds with singing actors and intricate musical textures invoking radio static and interference produced by close-mic'd acoustic guitar.

Character-driven and brilliant, Eat the Document is an important and revelatory story about the culture and consequence of rebellion, with particular resonance now.

CREATORS

PRESS

“Spiotta writes radiant, concentrated books that, as she has put it, consider ‘‘the way things external to us shape us: money, technology, art, place, history.’’ Her three previous novels were critically acclaimed; Eat the Document (2006) was a National Book Award finalist, cited for its evocation of ‘‘30 years of American life in a miniature panorama at once nuanced, culturally authoritative and devastatingly intimate.’’ ... Her books are simultaneously vast and local, exploring great American themes (self-invention, historical amnesia) within idiosyncratic worlds (phone phreaks, ’80s Los Angeles adolescence). She has been compared with Don DeLillo and Joan Didion, but her tone and mood are distinctly her own: She’s fascinated, not alienated.”

— Susan Burton, New York Times Magazine

“Eat the Document reveals its darkness and weirdness slowly. The corrosive nature of secrecy is there, as is the eerie ease of self-invention. Spiotta ultimately expresses a deep ambivalence to American culture and its affection for starting over, its freedom from memory and history and accounting.”

— Anna Godberson, Esquire online

“Spiotta has written a very American novel about dissent, which becomes more valuable but also more dangerous and unwelcome in times of war, and the ethical lines one cannot cross without, as Caroline says, becoming the thing you wish to escape.”

— John Hammond, San Antonio Express-News

Eat the Document is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Information

Duration 90 minutes, no intermission

Commission Previous development at Milwaukee Opera Theater. Eat the Document is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Roles Eight singers, playing multiple characters from the early 70s and late 90s

Instrumentation Band of seven (Music Director/piano, string quartet, drum set/percussion, acoustic/electric guitar)

Publisher Staged performances of this work require licensing through the creators.