We Are Not These Hands
By Shelia Callaghan

"Vannon's bare-bones approach to the text allows for an aching intimacy and an effective simulacrum of the grungy comfortless world of the play. Winston, with his close-cropped hair and thick glasses, looks like a more hysterical version of Michael Douglas' on-the-edge Everyman in "Falling Down," but he reveals great vulnerability and tenderness with small genstures, as when he wipes off Moth's overdone makeup with cold cream and shows that he's not quite the "hinky scuzzer" the girls expect to meet..."
Kerry Reid, Chicago Tribune

Meet Belly and Moth. Their days are spent dreaming of a future across the river, where the world isn't this dirty, this empty... this fucked up. Now, meet Leather. He's come from across the river to study, to learn, to leave the past. You would think they'd have all the right answers for each other. You would think. When the world dies, we all start over with nothing. And you have to know what you want before you can have it...to study, to learn, and to leave the past.

Bries Vannon sheds light onto the play's direction: "The first thing that draws you in about We Are Not These Hands is the language. Sheila's dialogue bobs and weaves and demands to be spoken out loud, which makes it that much more exciting that the quiet, personal moments of the play are where the magic lies. This story, set in a desire-driven society obsessed with surface, lives with those underneath - the outsiders who can't quite find a way in. The subtelty and nuance that is allowed to come out by letting these three characters take center stage gives this play a sense of intimacy beyond what the setting would lead you to expect."

The Right Brain Project concluded its 2011 season of Death and Rebirth with the Chicago premiere of Sheila Callaghan's We Are Not These Hands.

Director:	Bries Vannon
Assistant Director:	Jamie Bragg
Stage Manager:	Michelle Carlene Roth
Lighting Design:	Michael C. Smith
Video Design:	Tyler Pistorius
Costume Design:	Carla Hamilton
Featuring:	Ariel Begley
	Cassidy Stirtz
	Philip Winston

Video by Stephen Gawrit