Last Gasp

Equipped with a bulletproof vest, some know-how and a touch of irony, two icons of lesbian-feminist theatre use spoken word and movement as a call and response to urgent global predicaments.

Speaking from a microphone about her own narcissistic tendencies, fragile identities and privilege, Peggy Shaw’s poetic musings are interspersed with Lois Weaver’s micro dance essays in which she wryly upends ‘how to’ mania. Solo yet somehow interdependent, more than a hint of Narcissus and Echo emerges onstage. Last Gasp brings prickly conversations literally to the table in episodes entitled ‘The Trump in Me’ and ‘How to Have the Last Word’, with the duo hitting upon survival strategies for a world collapsing around them.

Last Gasp WFH

Last Gasp: A Recalibration

Experimenting with new ways of making and finding joy in a pandemic, and keen to maintain momentum while having to ‘work from home’, Split Britches collaborated with Nao Nagai, Vivian Stoll, and Morgan Thorson to create a new format for performance that could be shared from a time of quarantine. Playing with the fragility of technology, particularly the unpredictability of Zoom, the team found new avenues to the classic Split Britches aesthetic of broken down theatrical conventions, exposing the self on stage. Last Gasp WFH was developed in a site-specific Zoom format using their quarantine-home as a structural visual anchor. A house becomes a stage for the experience of sheltering in place, serving both as an intimate capsule of sequestered time and an apt reflection on the precarious nature of our bodies and the planet we call home.

The New York Times calls Last Gasp WFH:
“Not just one of the 40-year-old company’s best pieces, but among the most evocative art to emerge from the Covid era.”

Last Gasp WFH premiered live presented by La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club through the streaming service Stellar on November 20, 2020, receiving two extensions and a Drama League nomination.

Landing somewhere between the realms of the live and the virtual, presence and absence, between staying home and venturing out, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver combine spoken word, movement and Zoom technology to respond to a world turned upside down.

“Imagine what it would be like to perform, for the last time. Question what ‘last time’ means here. Imagine how you would perform dying on stage. Your last gasp.”

Writes Brendan MacDonald for Exeunt Magazine in a ‘how to’ style review, modeled after Weaver’s exploration of ‘how to’ culture.

Almost two years after beginning to create Last Gasp, Last Gasp: A Recalibration gathers us in the same room but not as the same people. Returning to the physical stage, Shaw and Weaver reevaluate what it means to be together in a theatre and what it means to perform in the aftermath of a foundation shattering crisis. The legendary performance duo brings us together to recalibrate - not only facing demise but considering strategies for moving on.

Last Gasp: A Recalibration premiered at the Barbican (London) October 19-23, 2021. Keep an eye out for future touring of the performance, or get in touch to discuss presenting it together!

The History of Last Gasp

Last Gasp started as a live performance but became the digital Last Gasp WFH during the height of pandemic lockdowns, and now lives on as the hybrid live and digital performance, Last Gasp: A Recalibration. In early 2020 the live performance Last Gasp set out to question demise: the demise of ageing bodies, civil conversation, and a sustainable planet. The pandemic arrived and knocked the breath out of all of us, as did a period of civil unrest that marched under the banner of ‘I can’t breathe.’ The ironies were not lost as we locked down, stayed in and continued our investigations resulting in a digital performance, Last Gasp WFH. Now, almost two years later, Last Gasp: A Recalibration is our way of facing head on the new question of what it means to be together in a theatre and what it means to perform in the aftermath of a foundation shattering crisis - to not only face demise but also consider strategies for moving on.

April-June, 2020

Original premiere dates for Last Gasp at La MaMa ETC (NYC) and the Barbican (London), which were canceled due to Covid-19

November 20, 2020

Premiere of the digital Last Gasp WFH presented by La MaMa ETC on the streaming platform Stellar

October 19, 2021

Live premiere of the hybrid digital and live performance Last Gasp: A Recalibration at the Barbican

The Creative Team

Last Gasp WFH and Last Gasp: A Recalibration were created in collaboration with Lois Weaver, Peggy Shaw, Nao Nagai, Vivian Stoll, and Morgan Thorson.

Performed:
Written:
Directed:
Sound:
Choreography:
Visual & Lighting Design:
Production Manager:
SB Producer:

Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw
Lois Weaver and Peggy Shaw
Lois Weaver
Vivian Stoll
Morgan Thorson
Nao Nagai
Nao Nagai
Laura Hunter Petree

Last Gasp: A Recalibration Additional Team Members:

Design Consultant:
Costumes:
Production Assistant:
Social Media:

Matt Delbridge
Susan Young
Naz Simsek
Aoife Scott

Last Gasp is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature, in addition to the Wellcome Trust, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with the New York Foundation for the Arts. Research residencies for development of Last Gasp were completed with the Guthrie Theatre, Metal Culture, Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts, the Barbican, and Artec at University 8 Paris.