Staged in a remote structure, the journey of The Keep is one whose destination remains unknown until the audience`s final verdict. The 7 Residents of the Keep live here for different reasons but they share a singular intersection: they cannot function in the outside world any longer. Many look for truth, others for understanding, for confirmation, or for hope. Together with the 21 audience members who are invited into The Keep for one evening, they grasp to understand their story and their future. In the end, one of the residents will leave and the final judgment rests in the hands of the 21 invited guests.
Originally created and performed in Austria, Claudia Heu’s The Keep blends the boundaries between art and reality, creating an interactive experience dependent on audience participation and intervention. Life is a play, and the guests have a say in directing it. Crime, punishment, innocence, guilt, and social ostracism blend together in this unique experience of site specific theatre, inhabitants and audience alike seeking for atonement in the search for external order.
The Keep ran from September 30-October 10, 2015 in Albuquerque, NM at a secret locale.
Directed by Claudia Heu
Written & assistant directed by Adam R. Burnett
Co-created & performed by Tricklock Company & Donna Jewell
Albuquerque Journal review of The Keep