Selena and Luna have been together for a long time, but they haven't felt truly connected for a while. It's hard to trace where all the trouble started. Something has crept in. An elusive silence, a pattern that cannot be named. Now they are in bed together, trying one more time.
In this sharp and raw duet, layered with humor, sadness, and a touch of vampirism, Toni Blackwell explores the complexity of a relationship. How do you connect with another when you both carry unprocessed trauma? How do you shape a queer relationship when you have few examples? And how do you move forward together when you are both stuck for different reasons?
In The Elephant, you follow Selena and Luna for one night, in the midst of another battle full of role-playing, arguments, tenderness, and strangulation. Monsters under the bed and outside the bedroom, imagined or real. A story about the horror of love, intimacy, violence, and everything that remains unspoken.
After the premiere performance, the audience is warmly invited to the after-party. Expect a slumber party with various acts and a dress code: Nightmare Nightwear.
This performance contains references to sexual trauma, physical violence, and blood.
Toni Blackwell (1993) connects the personal with the societal in her performances. She graduated in 2021 from the Theater Teacher program in Amsterdam. Using distinct stylistic choices, her work balances heavy subjects with light-heartedness. She works closely with her performers, building characters and worlds with them that are both provocative and educational.
In 2024, Toni's first Frascati production, For junkies who will save the world, premiered: a raw, imaginative piece about a group of friends living from afterparty to afterparty. At Frascati Producties, she previously created For Sluts Who Have Been Raped during Under Construction (2022, winner of De Troffel at Festival Cement) and Toni Blackwell’s Medusa with actress Nora El Koussour (Beginnings, 2023). Additionally, Toni works as a teacher at Bijlmer Park Theater and was an assistant director for Romana Vrede’s successful show The Story of Travis (Theater Rotterdam / Well Made Productions, 2023). She is currently assisting Romana again with her new production Sisterhood (2026, Theater Rotterdam).