What we’ve got here is documentation of Christopher Chen’s You Mean To Do Me Harm. Capturing these was like trying to bottle smoke, which is exactly what theater photography is, right? Catching light that’s already dying, freezing bodies mid gesture in some desperate attempt to prove the thing actually happened at all.
These images from the San Francisco Playhouse run speak to something Chen’s been working through: the profound paranoia of human connection, the absolute terror that everyone around you might be orchestrating your destruction. It’s the kind of raw nerve material that makes suburban comfort look like a slow motion car crash. Bill English directing, my friend Angrette McCloskey’s set design turning the stage into some kind of architectural mousetrap where every surface might betray you.
Chen writes like someone who’s actually looked at the heart of American anxiety and decided not to look away. Not the kind of playwright who gives you easy answers or comforting darkness. Just the real thing: people trying to figure out if the threat is external or if they’re constructing their own hells one paranoid thought at a time.
The whole enterprise, from McCloskey’s sets to Brooke Jennings’ costumes, creates this aesthetic of beautiful, creeping dread.
Directed by Bill English
Cast: Katie Rubin, Jomar Tagatac, Charisse Loriaux, Cassidy Brown
Set Design: Angrette McCloskey
Costumes: Brooke Jennings
Sound & Projections: Theodore J.H. Hulsker
Lighting: Kurt Landisman