Welcome back to Studio X and the world premiere of I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart. If last year's inaugural season explored the physical relationship between actor and audience, staging immersive, environmental, and particularly intimate productions, this year's Studio X season offers emotional intimacy in four distinct theatrical keys. On the heels of Staceyann Chin's solo show about a Jamaican immigrant's adventures in queer motherhood in gentrifying Brooklyn, Morgan Gould's world premiere explores a friendship turned on itself.
I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart is a bit of a departure for the director turned playwright: As the artistic director of Morgan Gould & Friends, she’s made a series of fantasy-laced satires about loss and belonging since 2012, replete with cross-dressing actors and a mock-serious “so-dumb-it’s-smart” sensibility. But as she began her thesis project for an MFA in playwriting at Brooklyn College, her mentors Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney challenged her to write beyond her satiric comfort zone and take on something she truly cared about.
In thinking about what she treasures most deeply—and could actually write about sincerely—she realized the answer was her love for her two best friends, both gay men. Her friendships have always been the most important driving force in her life; her most traumatic breakups have been with friends, not romantic partners. Morgan identifies as a fat woman, and her play builds from the unique stakes of a friendship between a fat woman and gay man that’s lasted from college into their mid-thirties. “Friendships between marginalized people are deeper than other friendships,” she says. “When you live in a world that hates you, these bonds can be all you have. There’s an unspoken pact—we’re freaks making our way through the world together.”
I Wanna Fucking Tear You Apart was developed through Studio R&D, our new work incubation program that provides artists with the resources they need to create. This production marks the first time Morgan has produced a play of hers with the support of an institution. It has been a delight to host her and her play’s blend of pop culture and politics, dumb-smart jokes, and deep understanding of people and theatre. It is a particular pleasure to know that we're introducing her engaging and pointed voice to a new audience with this production.
While the play isn’t autobiographical, its stakes and perspective are personal. Writing from a place of sincerity, Morgan captures the joy and vulnerabilities of deep friendships while probing cultural assumptions about niceness and beauty, attachments and exclusivity, and the cost of living in a world that finds you unacceptable in some way.
—Adrien-Alice Hansel