SPECTRA

Spectra is a comic book- play in process adapted from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's Amazing Fantasy #15, the origin story of one of Marvel Comics' most popular superheroes, The Amazing Spider- Man. 

Conceived as a 'comicbook- play,' Spectra was developed through a series of rehearsal laboratories and writing workshops. This project explores playwrighting as a collaborative process and engages the visual form of comic books as a mode of playwrighting. In doing so, this project experiments with ways of developing script, where text functions as an icon for language as well as image, as in the form of comic books.

This project explores the effects of internal and external violence upon the fractured psyche of a superhero seeking to reconcile the trauma of the past with their desire to wield power in the name of a greater good. By engaging with studies on feminism, tricksterism, transformative justice and queer theory, Spectra seeks to question patriarchal notions of masculinity in order to redefine what it means to be a superhero.

Spectra seeks to reframe the vision of the superhero as the sole author and executor of violence in the name of an absolute moral authority and propose  a model for the superhero as existing within and accountable to a community of care.