Mallory Catlett in the kitchen at Mount Tremper Arts, March 2015.

I am reading Burroughs’ Soft Machine, the first book of his Nova Trilogy. Just up the hill from the house is a barn, where my collaborators Keith Skretch (video) and G. Lucas Crane (sound) were working too. With my production company Restless NYC, I often reimagine nonlinear experimental novels for performance. I work across disciples to expand what the theater can contain, asking what else can time and language do? The kitchen is a space of relaxation and exchange for me. I love to cook with collaborators. You never know what will come up at the dinner table. We returned to Mount Tremper again in 2017 to work on and perform the second concert, Ticket That Exploded.

G Lucas Crane making a field recording of breaking twigs in the woods at Mount Tremper Arts. Image credit: Keith Skretch video still.

What excites me is the unexpected ways we have found ourselves in the world Burroughs predicted and how the work brings past, present, and future into convergence. It was in the woods around Mount Tremper (where we shot a lot of the original footage) tracking Lucas in the act of making field recordings that Keith found a critical visual thread that connected Lucas back to his college days when he first encountered the Nova Trilogy: “I realized that the power to break reality is within anyone’s grasp, and that the tech necessary to do so is cheaper and more plentiful than most think. It’s only a question of technique and mindset.” I hope the work challenges the Burroughs enthusiast and welcomes the newcomer. What confused Burroughs’ readers in the ‘60s and ‘70s — its language and techniques — is foundational today for an audience fluent in the ways and weaponization of social media.

Bill Kennedy and Mallory Catlett at Burke rehabilitation hospital. Image credit: Mallory Catlett.

My Creative Capital project is called M//F Future, which is, in fact, a pair of performances that were supposed to premiere together. It’s a dreamed-up conversation between Burroughs and Doris Lessing about human evolution and the diametrically different worlds they imagined. But DECODER grew from one concert to three, and COVID made the Lessing piece, a site-specific installation starring a 70 year old actress, impossible to complete within the same timeframe. Then, this past August my partner and collaborator suffered a severe stroke. Thanks to my longtime partnership with The Chocolate Factory who commissioned the work, we pushed the premiere back. In a year of impossible odds, we can celebrate the culmination of 8 years of work. These setbacks have taught me to listen to the world around you — it’s a guide, not an obstacle. And that asking for help is a gift — a mutually enriching experience — filled with surprises.

Panorama shot of rehearsal. Dramaturg Alex Wermer-Colan focuses a 360 camera while G Lucas Crane plays his tape decks. Image credit: Keith Skretch video still.

As a full time caregiver right now, I am enjoying being back in the rehearsals, spending time with my long time collaborators. I forgot how much I love being in the room. I look forward to being in the theater.

Zoom room with Jim Findlay, G Lucas Crane and Mallory Catlett decompressing after an online performance with Culturehub during lock down May 2020. Image credit: Screenshot by Mallory Catlett.

We are attempting the difficult task of putting three concerts together — Soft Machine (at Vancouver International Push Festival and at Lamama in 2016), Ticket That Exploded (Mount Tremper Arts in 2017 and Pioneer Works in 2019,) and Nova Express, which we have been exploring during the pandemic through sound recordings, video pieces, and streaming experiments.

A lemur named Bertha at the Duke University Lemur Sanctuary. Image credit: Jim Findlay video still.

Creative Capital has supported an 8-year process that has allowed us to engage audiences at every stage of development. But it has also funded pure research. In 2015, I took a trip to the Duke Lemur Sanctuary where Jim Findlay (performer/designer) and I had a private tour and shot footage. Unlike monkeys, lemurs love eye contact. This matriarchal species, on the brink of extinction, captured Burroughs’ imagination. How different would we be if we had evolved from them? At the end of his book Ghost of Change he urged his readers to give to the Duke Sanctuary.

A collage by William Burrough of a lemur that Mallory had in her workspace at the Watermill Center. Image credit: Mallory Catlett.

At the Watermill Center in 2019, dramaturg Alex Wermer-Colan and I had access to Robert Wilson’s archive of Burroughs’ photographs and visual art work while working on Nova Express.

The DECODER development and touring setup taken at Gibney Dance in our first workshop in 2015. Image credit: Keith Skretch video still.

I am most excited about putting it all together — textually, visually, and musically. We have developed the piece with a pretty minimal setup for touring but at The Chocolate Factory we will perform on a fully-realized set by Jim Findlay who notes: “My approach is to create the craft in which Burroughs’ message has traveled here to us. His cut-up technique is exactly that, a technique. And our stage aesthetic should likewise be a technique. A machine that delivers the past which is creepily and accurately our present.” With Burroughs, there is this mix of dead seriousness, crazy paranoid conspiracy theory, and an uncensored energy in the language that breaks down your defenses and lets you laugh at the monstrosity. It’s inspiring to invite people into the energy of this language — to laugh at the darkness. It’s a form of resistance that is sometimes difficult to remember.

Rendering of the scenic design for The Chocolate Factory premiere. Image credit: Jim Findlay.

Remember the future at Mallory Catlett’s DECODER: Nova Express from June 24 — July 9, 2023 at The Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City, New York. More information here.