Am I Dead Analysis

Am I Dead, is a version of Kevin R. Free’s Am I Dead? The Untrue Narrative of Anatomical Lewis, The Slave, the Isis-Osiris myth. In the story, four strangers from different time periods are trapped in purgatory. The only way to get out, is by rebuilding the lives of men they wronged in life. It attempts to portray our country’s history of violence on black men throughout time. The play itself, takes place in one small room with four people attempting to portray an extremely complex story through four different time periods. In addition, it switches in between those time periods and the present moment of them in purgatory. The only way to depict those, is through the design. The first thing we notice, is the costumes which portray each character.

Principally, the room is majoritarily dark with orange lighting yet whenever we go into the story of someone’s past, the lighting shifts to blue lighting particularly on that one person. The design not only supports the play, but IS the play. Without the design, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish the representation of the characters, the time periods they belong to, the fact that we are in purgatory, the past from the present, each individual story from another, the events throughout the plot and essentially, the deeper significance of the themes in the play such as the sins each and every one of them committed in the particular time period they belonged to towards “black men”. One particular instance that impressed me, was how the play took design to their advantage to clarify and distinguish each complexe story from one another shifting from past and present through lighting and relating each character with one another throughout different times. Or, the projection and sound effects on the rocks falling on purpose above them with the white drapes falling one by one so I am aware of the progression of where we are in the story. Or, when Lewis the slave turns into the “God” through the use of accessories and