From Surgipelago, the Beach Surgery encyclopedia
The Wound Folds Inward
This is a stage-based work. For other theatre adaptations, see Theatre (Beach Surgery).
Original venue documentation archived; traveling production continues.
The Wound Folds Inward is a walking-theatre piece staged in an urban warehouse split into two physical halves: the **upper deck** replicates Newcastle's fragmented architecture (bolted-together rooftops, a shopping-centre floor marked in red and sand, the mechanical seagull descending on wires); the **lower deck** presents the desert interior as a sloped, shadowed canyon floor with a beacon-lit radio igloo at its center.
The audience moves between halves over the 72-minute duration. As they ascend or descend, they encounter fragments of scenes played simultaneously on both levels—the effect is of watching the same event through two different temporal lenses.
On the upper level, **four actors perform the Newcastle sequences** in forward time. On the lower level, **four actors perform the interior sequences in reverse time**. A fifth actor—**Katita**—moves between the levels, climbing and descending, creating the only temporal bridge. The glitch is represented as a **physical gap**: a ravine painted with light that the audience must navigate around, which grows visibly wider as the piece progresses.
Dialogue is sparse and overlapping; much narrative unfolds through physical tableau and choreography. At one moment, the upper-level actors are wheeling Leif across imagined wires while the lower-level actors simultaneously construct a rocket cart from metal scraps—same action, two timelines, two languages of movement. Katita watches from the gap between them.
The climax folds the space: both decks converge into a single chamber where Leif's wings (silicone, flesh-toned, articulated) erupt and deflate in a loop, while Katita's pipe-blade catches light from all angles at once. She holds him as the wings fail.
Katita: We can do it. We can do it. We can—
Original warehouse production archived; traveling production touring with video documentation.