Melanie Jame Wolf: Finite Jest – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
Melanie Jame Wolf:
Finite Jest
Finite Jest is an anatomy of The Joke. The Joke is that everybody dies. The question is: can we laugh about that together in a theater? In this new solo performance about comedy, tragedy and death, choreographer, performer and artist Melanie Jame Wolf’s suspicion is that we need to.
Finite Jest departs from Wolf’s own encounters with death and (nearly) dying through her experience with breast cancer treatment, the death of friends, the grief-feed scrolling on her phone screen, and raising a 5-year-old child who asks: “What happens when we die?”
In stand-up, when a joke fails, the comedian is said to have died on stage; stand up, drop dead. Finite Jest is interested in the edges of where The Joke dies. And in what ways can we work with humour as the absurd, weird thing that makes the fact of death – and the inevitability of grief – occasionally bearable?
Melanie Jame Wolf invokes archetypal images – from Shakespeare, to the figure of the jester, to stand up comedy – in order to question social scripts for how we grieve, how we think about dying, and how morality is produced around these topics.
The piece departs from her 2024 essay for DELFI titled The Mean Well.
Concept, text, set, sound, costume design: Melanie Jame Wolf
Performance: Melanie Jame Wolf
Light design, outside eye: Agnė Auželytė
Dramaturgy: Louise Trueheart
A production by Melanie Jame Wolf / Savage Amusement in coproduction with Sophiensæle. Kindly supported by Schwankhalle Bremen and with co-production in residency from O Espaço do Tempo. Media partners: Missy Magazine, Siegessäule, taz.
Melanie Jame Wolf makes artworks, performances, and texts about power, persona, and the phenomenon of “show business”: the persuasive, the deceptive, the staged, and the performed in political, theatrical, and everyday contexts. Her work explores the vulnerability of the live moment and the body as an unruly political riddle. These interests are explored through shape-shifting and play with language in surprising and humorous ways.
Spaces that have presented her work include Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Kunstmuseum Basel – Gegenwart, KW – Institute of Contemporary Art, HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, nGbK, Schirn Kunsthalle, The National 2019: New Australian Art biennial, VAEFF - Film Festival NYC, Arts Santa Monica, Schwules Museum, Sophiensæle, Münchner Kammerspiele, Arts House Melbourne, Kasseler Dokfest, KINDL, Bärenwzinger Berlin, SOPHIE TAPPEINER and Institute of Modern Art Brisbane.