In "Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place", three men connected by murder share a jail cell and enact surreal scenes of betrayal, bullying and male bonding in a serio-comic and highly theatrical exploration of homosocial behavior and the roots of violence. Borrowing bits from pop culture, playground games, and even American History, Megan Terry -- in her own particularly playful way -- asks us to think about the social conditioning that leads to ruthless competition, the connections between misogyny and homophobia, and the costs of emotional and sexual repression. These ideas are filtered through shifting realities -- some stark, some comic, and some downright silly -- realities which keep the audience on their toes, and on the edge of their collective seat, trying to figure out who really committed the crime, and if the inmates' fantasy of escaping will ever become realized. 

"Keep Tightly Closed in a Cool Dry Place" was originally performed by the Open Theater in

1965, with a cast that included Joseph Chaikin.  Famous for their exploration of alternatives to the then-dominant  stranglehold of "method" (naturalistic) acting, the Open Theater's actors and writers investigated new approaches including improvisation, transformation, collaboration and ritual in their groundbreaking work. With this new production of Megan Terry's early experiment, The Free Agents have paired their research of highly physical acting with a re-examination of gendered behavior and the construction of masculinity, adding a new dimension to Terry's text and resulting in a production is jam-packed with action: crime, sex,

the continual jockeying for position -- all the things that make ideals fade into the background and bring out gut reactions in all of us.