Posted on Sunday 22 May 2005
When the curtain rises, the stage set for Melissa Robertson’s new one-woman show, 9/11: I Remember!!!, is ominously dark, with the exception of two solid rectangular shapes backlit in red. A spotlit Robertson appears suddenly, standing between the towers, which are proportioned so that they are actually slightly smaller than her diminutive 5′2″ frame. In apparent homage to Karen Finley, she begins the show in a conservative navy-blue pinstriped suit and immediately dumps a bucket of powdered sugar over her head as “Everybody Hurts” by REM plays in the background.
Then, the show truly begins.
Face caked in dusty white powder, Robertson delivers a 3 1/2 hour monologue in which she passionately depicts the lives of 210 of the victims of 9/11. Each 60-second rendition is a little jewel that fleshes out a life in a powerful and moving way, demonstrating once again what theater can do for humanity.
“Of course I wanted to depict every victim, but I had to submit to the constraints of the stage,” Robertson told us in an exclusive backstage interview with B00mb0x. “It was necessary to pick the 210 most interesting victims. While of course every lost life has meaning, not every life makes good theater. I feel comfortable that each of the 3,000 victims, more or less, are represented by the 210 who were most valuable, from a dramaturgical point of view.”
Robertson was a junior at Bryn Mawr when the attacks occurred, studying Theater and Political Science. Although she was not actually in New York City on that fateful September day, she felt an unusual closeness to the victims and their families.

“9/11: I Remember!!!” author and performance artist Melissa Robertson
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about them,” Robertson said. “It was on my mind day and night. Who were these people? How did they live? Who did they love? It bothered me so much, I started taking time away from my studies so I could google their names.”
In a bold artistic decision, Robertson made no effort to get in touch with the actual victims’ families, preferring to get her information from the Internet. “I felt that learning more actual facts about these people would sully my own artistic project. In a way, by remaking their experiences into this art, I have created people who are more important than they were in their ‘real’ lives.”
Thanks to Ms. Robertson’s, 9/11: I Remember!!!, we will remember, too.
“9/11: I Remember!!!” will run through August 31st at the Collective Unconscious in downtown Manhattan. Tickets are $70. Family of victims of the World Trade Center attack are eligible to receive a 10% discount upon showing proper documentation.
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