Overview
FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs. Documentary interviews, speeches, press conferences and demonstrations are sampled, taken apart, and set to music, replayed this time as operatic scenes. A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry. In this fictional world, Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saint-like heroism. She kidnaps them, transports them to Niagara Falls, and forces them to sing a series of complicated avant-garde vocal compositions. However, when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills, Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy, and thus, no more opera.
Director and cast
- John Greyson Director
- Van Abrahams as Christopher Moraka
- Zackie Achmat as Christopher Moraka
- Stephen Chen as Saint Caesura
- Ezra Perlman as St. Martin
- Ashton Williams as Nkosi Johnson
- Denise Williams as St. Teresa of Avila
- David Wall as Tim McCaskell
- Deborah Overes as Gertrude Stein
- Ian Funk, Jesse Nishita as Virgil Thomson
- Mark Hartmeier as St. Peregrine
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