For the Sins I Can Remember
Inspired by Maimie Pinzer and her collection of letters, The Maimie Papers, mixed with stories from other prostitutes in the red light districts around the US, For the Sins I Can Remember is an absurdist portrait of women from the late 19th and early 20th centuries who chose to work as "soiled doves." Set in a purgatory cell where a prostitute squares off with two clownish Angels of Judgment, this tragi-comic farce investigates the social languages projected onto a woman’s body: the female body as commodity, as fantasy, as moral territory. The expressionistic narrative weaves the antics of the clownish Death Angels, Victorian etiquette lessons, and a vaudevillian brothel scene with painful questions of choice and morality. For the Sins captures a woman’s obstinate effort to survive her life—and death—with her personhood intact.
PERFORMANCES
New Orleans Fringe Festival
November, 2014
The IRT Theater
New York City
October, 2013
The Bridge Theatre
Duct Tape and a Dream Festival
(work-in-progress performance)
May, 2013
CREDITS
Conceived/ Directed by:
Jennifer Sargent
Co-Written/ Developed by:
Donna Costello
Cynthia Polutanovich
Jennifer Sargent
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Performed by:
Donna Costello
Denni Dennis
Emily James
Elisa Matula
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Devised by: David Arkema, Lisa Clair, Donna Costello, Denni Dennis, Christine Giancatarino, Steven Hajar, Emily James, Elisa Matula,
Peter Musante, Jennifer Sargent, Christopher Scheer, Mary Kate Schellhardt, Jennifer Stokes, Jessica Winograd
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Music Composer/ Pianist: Tony Melone
Lighting Designer:
Derek Wright

Costume Consultant:
Veronica Russell
photo by Hope Davis
photo by Hope Davis
photo by Hope Davis
photo by Hope Davis
"For the Sins I Can Remember is remarkably timely. The performance explores factors of social equality using the proscribed gender rules of the late nineteenth-century to reflect a modern culture equally savage.
Tony Melone’s ragtime lullabies that underscore the piece are well worth a showcase of their own.
In the hands of creators less adept, For the Sins I Can Remember could easily amalgamate [its multiple disciplines] in a way that could be regarded as the folly of total theater. There is no totality here; there is nothing. In fact, there’s quite a bit of nothing, and with it they do everything. For the Sins I Can Remember is poetry.”
- Joey Rizzolo, for New York Theatre Review
"Sterling performances and new writing that stimulates, titillates and tears up the traditional. For The Sins I Can Remember offers a theatre experience that is very real and unflinchingly bold.”
- Gareth Clark, Director of UK company Mr. and Mrs. Clark
SUPPORT
Vagabond Inventions created For the Sins I Can Remember with the support of Kori Rushton and the IRT Theater's “3B Development Series.” The project also received support from production company Roots and Wings Theatrical, the Duct Tape and a Dream Festival, the Rich Farm in the Catskill Mountains, and many generous individuals.