Affecting Expression

Eliana Cohen-Orth’s new tragicomedy Affecting Expression explores queer history and three female artists’ multi-layered relationships with each other, art-making, legacy, and home. In 1852, renowned crossdressing Shakespearean actress Charlotte Cushman retires from the stage to move to Rome with her long-term partner, writer Matilda Hays. Joining their party is an eccentric young sculptor named Harriet Hosmer and an enigmatic figure representing Charlotte’s stage persona. As the women navigate their intersecting artistic paths and the complexities of their relationships, the walls of their home and boundaries between art and reality become increasingly unreliable. Imagining a queer household before modern language to describe that experience, this queer tragicomedy combines history with fantastical elements to explore the thin line between finding and losing oneself in art. Directed by Eliyana Abraham Part of "The Tank Presents" program