FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER

5th International Theatre Symposium, Project Arts Centre 2003 | Theater Neben Den Turm, Germany 2003 | Theater Festival 360, Germany 2003

This outstanding piece asks many questions about losing, getting lost, being missed and missing.

Marburger Forum

A co-production with German Stage Services

by Gavin Quinn

For The First Time Ever is a comedy about therapy, weapons of mass destruction, the rise of the memoir and the fact that nobody is interested in missing adults. It is the story of three robots sent to war and their journey back to civilian robot life told through the original three robots who went to war in the first place. In the end they are transformed into constantly moving happiness machines.  A metaphor for narrative and for life that floats willy nilly on the tide of the words.

Helen: I am so profoundly tragically unsure of myself and amazingly fragile but I am not dead. No, not by a long shot.
Debra: If God deals you lemons you may as well make lemonade.

For The First Time Ever is in a pure field. It cannot be reduced to boy meets girl. The real action takes place in the caverns of the mind.

“This is tragic and actually deeply sad. Still, during the performance of a little more than one hour, giggles and loud laughs are heard frequently, because in its grotesque absurdity, the whole thing is rather funny … Perhaps the three don’t find themselves in the end. And the promised final message is not revealed. But the search itself is worth seeing.”

Marburger Neue Zeitung

Directed by Gavin Quinn

Designed by Aedín Cosgrove

Produced by Aoife White

Cast: Sigird Giese, Rolf Michenfelder and Claudia Weiss