Omnibus Theatre presents a special digital screening of a unique play about plant life by acclaimed Chilean Director Manuela Infante co-written with performer Manuela Salinas.
Vegetative State (Estado Vegetal) is a polyphonic, branching, exuberant, reiterative, divisible and sessile monologue. Its protagonist is a woman, who is not an individual; she is a multitude, a swarm.
This is not an animal play, it is a vegetable play.
Based on the revolutionary thinking of plant philosopher Michael Marder and plant neurobiologist Stefano Mancuso, the exploration consists of probing the ways in which new concepts such as plant intelligence, vegetative soul, or plant communication can transform our creative practice.
If we accept that plants have other ways of thinking, feeling, communicating, other way of being intelligent, a different form of consciousness and another notion of time, perhaps we can see our own notions of thinking, feeling, communicating and being aware, transformed. In Michael Marder’s words, “recognizing a “valid “other” in plants is also beginning to recognize that vegetal other within us.”
Vegetable State dances tirelessly around an impossible dialogue, that of humans and plants. A failed dialogue with nature that is, perhaps, our most innate monologue.
