KINGSTON, R.I. – Oct. 7, 2022 – I believe in nothing … You can’t trust nobody … Everybody’s running a scam … I’ve seen friends die.
On dead-end streets, and in an abandoned, rundown factory that serves as a temple to excess and despair, those are the realities of the homeless, preyed-upon youth of “Polaroid Stories,” which opens Thursday, Oct. 13, in the University of Rhode Island’s Robert E. Will Theatre.
Told in non-linear vignettes, Naomi Iizuka’s 1997 play provides a gritty, troubling view of life on the streets – a world of drug addicts, dealers, prostitutes, and runaways trying to survive in this no-man’s lands on the fringes of an unidentified city. Based in part of Ovid’s epic poem, “Metamorphoses,” the play blends Greek mythology – including characters such as Zeus, Dionysus, Orpheus, Eurydice – with true stories of homeless youth.
“At the heart of it, ‘Polaroid Stories’ is a story that is really about both the desire and consequences of escape,” said director Patrick Saunders, an adjunct professor of theatre at URI. “The characters are trying to escape from really terrible situations, but the avenues they use for that escape are equally as destructive. They really don’t want to feel their pain and they don’t want to have to be themselves anymore. This…
