Meronymy - by Rachel Jendrzejewski (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Context, Synecdoche, Homonym, and Polyseme live in a house laden with clutter, but Etymology keeps bringing new deliveries for Context: a blank book, a conversation with the dentist, a key. Homonym and Polyseme sort and rearrange; they send what they can to the cloud (via helium balloon); occasionally they smuggle out old things, lost for years, and new things they know Context will never need. Synecdoche tries to hold it all together and sings. Meanwhile, Context wonders whether listening is work--if it is labor, if it matters, and if what matters (if it matters) can be retrieved from the ever-accumulating material of living. meronymy is a kaleidoscopic, audiovisual performance-portrait of the technologies, ancient and modern, by which we cling to what we might otherwise forget. With wry tenderness and formal dexterity, Jendrzejewski builds a space in which to reckon with memory, loss, intrusion, and overflow amidst the cacophonic practice of living in language together.

Review Quotes

"An out-of-the-box, thought-provoking show... Language and technology geeks, this show's for you." --Star Tribune

About the Author

Rachel Jendrzejewski
is an interdisciplinary artist and writer who frequently collaborates with
choreographers, musicians, and multimedia artists to explore new performative
vocabularies. Her work has been developed and/or presented by Walker Art
Center, Red Eye, Hair+Nails, Public Functionary, Padua Playwrights, Los Angeles
Performance Practice, Tricklock Company, Joe's Pub at The Public Theater, The
Wild Project, Rhode Island School of Design, MASS MoCA, and ICA/Boston, among
others. Published texts include In Which _______ and Others Discover
the End, a collaboration with SuperGroup (Plays Inverse), encyclopedia (Spout
Press), and Amber (in I Might Be the Person You Are
Talking To: Short Plays from the Los Angeles Underground, Padua
Playwrights). Honors include Playwrights' Center McKnight and Jerome
Fellowships; residencies at the Weisman Art Museum, University of Minnesota
Institute for Advanced Study, Everwood Farmstead, and MASS MoCA; and grants
from the Minnesota State Arts Board, Metropolitan Regional Arts Council,
Network of Ensemble Theaters, PEN America, Dramatists Guild Foundation,
National Endowment for the Arts, and Foundation for Contemporary Arts, among
others. Rachel is a Playwrights' Center Core Writer, adjunct faculty at
Minneapolis College of Art and Design, and a Co-Artistic Director at Red Eye in
Minneapolis. MFA Playwriting, Brown University.