The second full length play by Keyon Monté centers around essential questions of humanity itself. A young earth is racing quickly through phases and death is always closer than we expect. The performance begins when a woman steps into the empty space and discovers the body of her son Abel, slain by his brother Cain. What follows is a meditation on the potential of life and the tragedy of loss. She contemplates the choices made in the past that hinders our present and if humans bend toward chaos. Mixing the minimal aesthetics of live concerts and Grecian tragedy Second born is a live performance for one that explores motherhood, brotherhood and the human existence.

CHARACTERS:

There is only one body on stage yet there are two. 
One alive, one dead. 

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The body alive is a woman, deeply melanated. Agile, supreme. If she were to walk down the avenues of the city today the skyscrapers would bend to her heel. And she would inspire terror and awe in anyone who beheld her. Yet to us she seems the face of any mother, any grandmother, had they found the fountain of youth. Her age, indeterminate. Her race, human. The body that’s dead is that of a man. Her son, Abel. 

TIME:
Before the Great flood.

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SETTING:
Earth. Somewhere outside Eden.