
Hearts Like Fists
Written by Adam Szymkowicz
Photo Creds: Jordan Pope
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Peter - “I can see you’re a human being who needs something. We all need something sometimes and if I can be the one to help, well that is good, but next time it could be you that helps and that will be good too.’”
A superhero noir comedy about the dangers of love. The city's heart beats with fear: Doctor X is sneaking into apartments and injecting lovers with a lethal poison. Lisa's heart beats with hope: Now that she's joined the elite Crimefighters, maybe she can live a life with meaning. And every beat of Peter's wounded heart brings him closer to death, but he's designing an artificial replacement that will never break. Can the Crimefighters stop Doctor X? Do Peter and Lisa have a chance at love? And who is the girl with a face like a plate?
In the show’s comic book world of black and white, good and evil are easy to distinguish and take heart in. But the real world is not created with black and white alone. No, every color is used to draw on significance, standard, authenticity, and other buzzwords of our culture. For Hearts Like Fists, my director’s concept clung to the image of the human fist and human heart being the same size. You can see my exact image on the cover of the program, which was the poster for our show. Though science now tells us that feelings are really stimulated from the brain and not the heart, human instinct still associates the emotion, love, as stemming from a caricature of that organ. The heart is known for love and the fist is known for hate and, at the same time they are the same size. The impact though, of actions played from love and hate are significant but in drastically different ways. Love can be rewarding but you have to fight for it. The heart and fist are two fragile extensions of ourselves that we share with others in both positive and negative ways. And don’t they both hurt once we are done using them?