Throughout, the work swaps back and forth between different realms and bends in time. We might be in the present, watching events unfold in real time—as when Lidberg and Artale first kiss—or we might be in a memory or vision where the present action is tinted by the past and the future simultaneously.  Stefan Levin’s original music also takes two tracks: the past plays out to the dramatic dissonance of strings playing a horror film soundtrack while the future, though no less dark or traumatic in terms of trajectory, lures us with a more promising and hopeful guitar song. Carpenter’s animated projections of silhouetted rabbits and storms, along with the conflation of toys and desire, similarly evoke fun and fear in equal measure. 

In the program note, the work is said to be “inspired by true-life events after the fall of the Berlin wall and the peak of the AIDS epidemic.” These reference points find their apotheosis in the sensual partnering of Artale and Lidberg. In their first duet, a ladder is used to magnify and constrict, and of course, demonstrate a sense of a real barrier. As a shirt is peeled off one of their bodies, the ladder passes overhead, almost as an extension of their discarded clothing; when horizontal, the ladder creates tiny walls for the performers to back over or find themselves stuck in; and leaning on a precarious diagonal, supported by Artale, the ladder is a staircase for Lidberg to navigate in order to peek over a boundary. Their maneuvering with this unwieldy prop is expert and seamless, drawing you into a relationship as tender as it is defiant.