Jarring, a play inspired by the patients of Willard State Asylum and many other state mental institutions across the country, tells the story of one woman’s secret survival strategy, and also expresses broader concern for both lost stories and lost people. Staged in the basement vault of a historic bank in lower Manhattan, Jarring is a meditation on isolation and the transcendent power of the imagination, as well as an inquiry into what it means to be labeled “sick,” “well,” “sane,” or “insane.” Jarring asks: what lasts? What endures? And is there any hope for the invisible experience that lives a life unnoticed by a noisy and distracted world?
