Words by Maddie Breeden
Photos by Alex Tiktinsky
The playwright on absurdist love, working with Alex Karpovsky and Erica Dasher, and what’s next for her dark comedy.
Sofas, futons, loveseats, sectionals, and chaises. Can pieces of furniture serve as objects of desire? COUCH, a dark comedy written and directed by Jessica Garrison and produced by Cole Spike, answers this question.
Spanning an hour, COUCH follows Raina (Erica Dasher; Jane by Design, ABC; The Burbs, Peacock), a woman who has turned her back on civil society in favor of a private obsession. A visit to her local upholsterer, Maxim (Alex Karpovsky; Girls, HBO), unspools into a long-form conversation about hopes for the future, the ethics of fulfillment, and the mechanics of couches. Although the play is a labyrinth of metaphors, at its crux, COUCH is an absurdist love story between a girl and her couch.
Following a staged reading of COUCH prior to the show’s upcoming Off Broadway run, Alt Citizen sat down with Jessica Garrison to discuss the inspiration and process behind her play.
What drew you to telling a story about a girl and her couch?
Jessica Garrison: I don’t always understand why I’m drawn to certain things, or why some things stick and some don’t, but there was an image from an episode of My Strange Addiction that never left me. Thinking about a girl with this affliction, paired with her sweet and unwitting enabler in upholsterer’s clothing felt like a layered setting to start with. It made me feel something, and I try to follow the feelings.
What is the deeper story that “COUCH” is conveying? Are there larger themes of sexual desire and fulfillment?
JG: Yes sex and desire, yes fulfillment, yes to all of the above and all things. The beauty of Couch to me is what each person makes of it. I couldn’t ever put a box around her. But I do feel okay saying it’s a love story, wrapped in a metaphor, in the shape of a couch.
Throughout the play, why is “Couch” personified as a female?
JG: It felt disingenuous to ever call Couch “it” and as I was writing, “she” came out naturally. Maybe it was the comfort, the nurturing, the softness, the curves, or maybe it was the holding of all life’s problems, but in my mind Couch could only be She.
What was it like working with actors Erica Dasher and Alex Karpovsky?
JG: Both of them are insanely talented and gifted actors. It’s hard to describe how fun it is to be in a room with people who are completely committed to an absolutely absurd and deranged scenario, and see what they do with it, and how they give it its own life and truth. I’m usually a results over process person, but there are rare moments when both the process and the results are exhilarating, and this was one.
What can audiences expect from “COUCH”?
JG: I think about the audience a lot when I write, because so often I am them. I wanted anyone who saw it to feel like they were there for something special. I can only hope that’s what it is.
