Night Walking & The Makers' Taint

Sulfur Editions is proud to present Andrew Brenza's compelling and unsettling play, Night Walking & The Makers' Taint, a work that plunges into the fractured landscape of a post-contact reality to dissect the nature of consciousness, At its core, Night Walking & The Makers' Taint grapples with the erosion of individual autonomy following a transformative, if not cataclysmic, event. The "accidental contact between human and alien technologies" births a "RAM of Spontaneous Sentience," a new consciousness formed through a "cross-pollination" that eliminates the independent existence of the original minds. This foundational premise immediately questions the boundaries of self, suggesting a universe where individual thought and will may be increasingly permeable, if not illusory. The character of John, a "male construct" haunted by the past and present, serves as our primary lens into this disorienting reality. His interactions with the ever-questioning Doctor, an "AI-conditioned data packet of human origin," highlight the struggle to define sanity and delusion in a world irrevocably altered. The Doctor's relentless probing and eventual diagnosis of "florid delusions" and "grandiosity" underscore the difficulty of maintaining a coherent sense of self when the fabric of reality seems compromised. John's assertion that his mind was "never yours to lose" speaks volumes about the potential precarity of consciousness in this new era. Brenza masterfully employs theatrical devices to mirror this philosophical unease. The shifting scrims and projections-from idyllic blue skies turning into writhing masses to the desolate internment camp and the overwhelming alien planet-visually represent the instability of perception and the potential for inner psychological states to seep into external reality. The use of "experimental synthesizer music" designed for "thematic consistency" yet allowing for "significant improvisation" further enhances this sense of a reality that is both structured and fluid, familiar and utterly alien.