As Split Britches, Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver have made off-kilter theater for 40 years. Memory loss, and a pandemic, haven’t stopped their creating.

By Elisabeth Vincentelli,

”In that otherwise bare house, the two women — “Peggy and I are an off-again-on-again couple,” Weaver noted; their complicity during the joint interview was obvious — resumed work on “Last Gasp,” the new show they were meant to perform at New York’s La MaMa in April and London’s Barbican in June 2020.

The dates ended up being canceled, like all dates, but “Last Gasp WFH” (for Working From Home) was created and recorded on Zoom. Weaver directed and the two women handled the sound and lighting themselves, with the help of a remote team that included technical designers and a choreographer.

The resulting hybrid of theater, movement and video — Shaw, 76, called it a Zoom movie, or “Zoomie” — is not just one of the 40-year-old company’s best pieces, but among the most evocative art to emerge from the Covid era; it is streaming on the La MaMa website until Dec. 5.”

Source: New York Times