Produced 33 years ago by Annie Hamburger’s En Garde Arts, a production company specializing in site specific performance, FATHER WAS A PECULIAR MAN shows how brilliantly Abdoh applied his own site-based approach, developed in Los Angeles, to New York City’s urban infrastructure. The pre-gentrification, half-deserted cobblestone streets, the neighborhood’s past as both a meat-packing and a transportation hub via the Highline train tracks, and its notoriety at the time as a center for after-hours sex clubs and trans sex workers, merge as a perfect background for FATHER’s spectacular tableaux of gluttony and lust.

Until recently, this production was only available to contemporary audiences in the form of 12 hours of raw footage, captured by videographer Miestorm. Over the course of the last year, Abdoh company member Tony Torn edited this two-hour feature version, commissioned as part of an archival project lead by Patricia Ybarra of Brown University. It employs restored sound and an inventive split screen visual organization that captures the spirit of the original production. This screening will premiere a subtitled version drawn from a newly created transcript.

The screening will be preceded by a short introductory presentation on Abdoh’s life and work by Bidoun’s Michael C. Vazquez and Elizabeth Wiet,and be followed by a roundtable discussion with Tony Torn and other original cast members, moderated by Frank Hentschker. This event is free and open to the public.

“[FATHER WAS A PECULIAR MAN is] an exhilarating evening of environmental street theater. […] The performances are as large and passionate as the audacity of the conception.” –Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES