MAX brings you the English-language premiere of Onur Karaoglu and Kathryn Hamilton’s episodic hybrid video/performance work, Read Subtitles Aloud, a performance whose only live component is the viewer. Reading subtitles on the screen, the viewer enters as character X into a crumbling theater collective, becoming the main character in a story—of camaraderie, sex, betrayal, and the digital theater of life in a pandemic—that’s unfolding across 13 episodes. Pairing relational roller coasters with the flattened, dulled realism of Zoom sociality, Read Subtitles Aloud speaks with humor and immediacy to a moment when our physical selves have leapt further into virtual modes of connection than ever before, when it’s hard to distinguish connection from isolation. 

Performances by Onur Karaoglu, Kathryn Hamilton, Meera Kumbhani, and Fatih Gençkal, and special guest star Paul Lazar. Read Subtitles Aloud features art direction by two-time Tony-winning scenic designer Christine Jones, costume and set curation by Zoë Hurwitz, lighting design by Bill Berner, and dramaturgy by Emily Reilly.  

All 13 Episodes are available on Media Art Xploration’s Youtube Channel.