A bar of soap talks about AIDS, war, and your mother. Art school just called.
“Inspired by the prose poem by Francis Ponge, SOAP is a series of monologues and stories concerning an object to which everyone has a relationship. Through the vehicle of soap, the actors talk about a variety of other subjects: family relationships, childhood, AIDS, World War II, love. With Alex Melamid, Walter Steding, Laura Cottingham, Bill Rice, Leslie Singer, Stephen Prina, and others.” –PARTICIPANT INC
Writing
Ponge adaptation turns cleaning product into confessional.
Acting
Downtown art legends playing versions of themselves.
Director
Gary Indiana
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Gary Indiana was a central figure in East Village's 1980s art scene, writing for the Village Voice; this film captures a specific moment when AIDS activism merged with avant-garde poetics.
Francis Ponge's original 'Soap' prose poem was part of his 'The Voice of Things' collection, which sought to liberate objects from human narcissism—Indiana's adaptation arguably reverses this, making soap entirely about human narcissism.
US
