Peerless - Jiehae Park

Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts - Louis Stage

Directed by Sarah Gitenstein

Scenic Design by Irena Hadzi Dordevic

Costume Design by David Arevalo

Lighting Design by Daphne Agosin

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Scenic Design Concept.

Peerless is a story that follows two twin sisters, Asian-Americans L and M that are fighting to manipulate their way into The College. For girls stakes are high and gaining acceptance into The College feels like a life or death situation. We are looking at the world through distorted lenses of our characters, it feels real, but it is heightened and unsettling - the same as their adolescent emotions. Colors are accidentally matching, high school and girls look weirdly picture-perfect, but the reality is that the perception is tweaked. Everything is mirrored in this world, underlying the symbiotic relationship the twins have. In a world where all looks equal and moves in pairs when something is out of sync - it is painful.

Inspired by Macbeth, the play is woven with small moments of Shakespearean horror - rodent-like creatures running around, creepy sounds, and craw feathers falling from the sky. As our main characters get seduced by ambition, start plotting the murders and become violent and paranoid of exposure, our highschool world slowly starts to defragment little by little unearthing to us an eerie supernatural of horror. After the ambition breaks the only remaining bond- the girls - M who is set up by L ends blown up by the brother of D ( boy that was previously killed ), the whole world is wiped out and L who stole M’s identity has a clean slate at The College, but what is really happening as the one last crow feather falls from the sky, we recognize the same competitive pressure cycle is started again at a new educational level.

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