The Great Sea Serpent portrays the laying of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable–a technological feat that revolutionized communications and ushered in global capitalism–and links it with a tale by Hans Christian Andersen that tells of the cable’s arrival from the perspective of sea creatures. This great “serpent” is a marvel to humans, who see it as the birth of the Information age, and a threat to sea life, for whom it portends the arrival of more and more man-made industrial detritus in the sea.
Staging Company/Theatre/Festival:
Northwestern University, Virginia Wadsworth Wirtz Center
Clare, Lu, ‘n Em Theater