Dr. Actions: What do you think it all means?
Dr. Thinking: I think it means that our collaboration is destined for great heights and the basking glory of inter-planetary fame and fortune.
Dr. Actions: But you said your dream was terrifying.
Dr. Thinking: Well, I’ve always been afraid of success.
Dr. Actions: Well, get over it, Blockbrain. Now that we’ve invented the echoless yell, nothing is going to getin our way. Lay it on me.

Dr. Thoughtless Actions, a young geneticist, awakes one morning to find a cardboard box secured to his head. Unable to wrench it off, he attempts suicide, not only failing but also, unbeknownst to himself, cloning himself, creating Dr. Wishful Thinking. The two losers fall madly in love, fall in science and fail to make a baby.

The cast consists of the two boxheads, who also play two disembodied narrators. The conversationbetween the four voices, an intricately woven semantic circus, traverses boxedness, love and the more ridiculous areas of metaphysical speculation. Through a series of rapid exchanges, verbal games and musical numbers, they discover that all their thoughts come from God, all their words come from the devil, and their desire for love is a habit acquired from the cinema. Sound familiar? Don’t be so hard on yourself.

‘Audacious, thought-provoking and frequently hilarious …a tightly wound complex of existential postulations, metaphysical ruminations and poop jokes.’

– Eye Weekly

Darren O’Donnell is a novelist, essayist, playwright, director, designer, performer and the artistic director of Mammalian Diving Reflex. His most recent books include a novel, Your Secrets Sleep With Me, and Social Acupuncture: A Guide to Suicide, Performance and Utopia. Previously published drama includes Inoculations (which contains White Mice, Over, Who Shot Jacques Lacan?, Radio Rooster Says That’s Bad) and pppeeeaaaccceee. Through Mammalian Diving Reflex, he stages interventionist performance art, including Haircuts by Children, Slow Dance with Teacher, Ballroom Dancing and the Children’s Choice Awards.

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