Listen to a podcast of a post-show discussion with musician/performer Cynthia Hopkins and playwright Craig Lucas, recorded live at Soho Rep on May 20, 2010, as part of their FEED series. This conversation took place immediately following a performance of Hopkins’ performance entitled Truth: A Tragedy.” Read an interview with her by Annie-B Parsons in BOMB’s Summer Issue, on newsstands June 15, or subscribe now.

Listen to a live recording:

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“I don’t think about the audience. If I thought about the audience, I’d be writing Rent.”

— Cynthia Hopkins

Cynthia Hopkins (genitor of the band Gloria Deluxe, the Accidental Trilogy, and a multitude of other notable artistic ventures and triumphs), latest work grew out of her love/hate relationship with Greek Tragedies and the writing she was doing while moving her ailing father into assisted living six years ago. The result is a document unflinchingly genuine and true, if filtered through a highly personal narrative. Through song, dance, and text Hopkins’ conjures Parkinson’s disease, a hoarder’s nest, notions of suppressed homosexuality and a classroom full of ten-year-olds chanting jump to a man on a ledge, with the get-up of a clown and the feet of a Fred Astair. Uncomfortable, hilarious and, tragic, maybe, heroic, definitely, Truth: A Tragedy has you squirming even as you laugh, laughing even as you squirm, and softening every time Ms. Hopkins sings.

Craig Lucas is a playwright and the author of Missing Persons, Blue Window, Reckless, Prelude to a Kiss, God’s Heart, The Dying Gaul, Stranger, Small Tragedy, The Singing Forest and Prayer for My Enemy. He is a contributing editor to BOMB in theater, and wrote the introduction to Speak Theater and Film, the best of BOMB interviews.

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BOMB 112/Summer 2010