-∞ (THE BAD INFINITY)
OVERVIEW
SET DURING A DEBAUCHED DINNER PARTY IN THE TWILIGHT OF LATE CAPITALISM, FOUR CHARACTERS TRAPPED IN A 1980s SITCOM REFLECT ON THE MANY WAYS IN WHICH MODERNITY IS SEDUCED BY “THE BAD INFINITY”
LOCATION
THEATRE ROW IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, THE TANK IN MIDTOWN MANHATTAN, THE HARLEM FLOPHOUSE IN HARLEM
CREDITS
BASED ON THE TEXTS OF: MAC WELLMAN
WRITTEN & DIRECTED BY: GRAHAM SACK
STARRING: BEN BECKLEY, ELIZA BENT, GRACE MCLEAN, GREIG SARGEANT, JAKE HART, JAN LESLIE HARDING, JOCELYN KURITSKY, LYNN COHEN, LYNNE MARIE ROSENBERG, STEVE MELLOR, TONY TORN
PRODUCED BY: NIC BENACERRAF, MEGHAN FINN (THE TANK), ZAC KLINE, ALEX BASCO KOCH, JOCELYN KURITSKY, GRAHAM SACK, JOSÉ ZAYAS
A note on -∞ (The Bad Infinity): This film is an homage to the work of avant-garde playwright, Mac Wellman. Wellman has been a fixture of experimental theater since the 1970s; his brand of philosophically knotty and outrageously anarchic anti-theater helped define what it meant to be experimental. Despite Wellman's long and illustrious career, this film represents the first time his work has been adapted from stage to screen. Graham Sack's cinematic adaptation fuses three of Wellman's works: the acclaimed play, "The Bad Infinity" (1983); "Speculations," a treatise on his theory of multi-dimensional drama; and "Hypatia, or The Divine Algebra," an Opera Libretto. The result is an experimental "cinema essay" that intentionally collides Wellman's language for poetic theater with film and television — uncannily resonant in our post-Covid media landscape. During a debauched dinner party in the twilight of late capitalist civilization, John Sleight, Deborah, Megan, and Ramon discuss the ways in which modernity is drawn to manifestations of "the bad infinity," ranging from the Freudian death drive to the cascading Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s to chaos theory, black holes, and Botticelli's visions of hell. The film's cast is saturated with luminary actors from the last four decades of the NY downtown experimental theater, including Tony Torn, Greig Sargeant, Steve Mellor, Jan Leslie Harding, Jocelyn Kuritsky, and Lynn Cohen.
The Bad Infinity was first broadcast through CUNY TV in the fall of 2023.
GO BEHIND THE SCENES
CUNY TV promo.
Torn Page Panel Discussion Excerpt: (l-r, by row) Jaime Carrillo, Tony Torn, Alex Basco Koch, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Jake Hart, Ron Cohen, Jan Leslie Harding.
The Flea Theater Panel Discussion (Interjecting) Excerpt: Mac Wellman.
LYNN COHEN (1933 - 2020)
Lynn Cohen passed away in New York on February 14th, 2020. We are so grateful to her for her contribution to our work, for her love of theater, her love of film, her talent, her wit, her kindness, her beauty. RIP.
-∞ (The Bad Infinity) was Lynn Cohen’s last film.
