An empty stage and an eager audience. A man bursts onto the stage brandishing a sword; the sight of the audience fills him with longing and awakens distant shreds of memory. He has no idea where or who he is, but knows he is a great sinner who has escaped Hell. He casts a spell, and the audience’s experience begins to fuse with his.

"I begin to know myself, a man back the other side of Hell, a man you hide your daughters from, a man with bloody hands. Am I that man?"

I, Jack, am the Knave of Hearts takes the audience on a journey of discovery and reckoning as Don Juan bursts through the fissure that separates mortality from eternal damnation and tries desperately to remember who he was, discover what he is doing here now and uncover why he has been allowed to escape.

"You want to know what Hell is like? Hell is to be aware when there is nothing to be aware of and nothing to be aware with but your own desire… Hell is the end of hope."

John Carter, a local poet who has turned his hand to playwriting over the past fifteen years, deftly merges lyrical language with narrative as he delves layer by layer into the complex nature of Don Juan’s reflections on a life he would have lived in no other way; even with the full knowledge of the resulting punishment. His last play, Lou, based on the life of Lou Salome received critical acclaim in the New York Fringe Festival last year.

DC Arts Center
2438 18th Street NW, Washington DC 20009
Reservations: 202-462-7833

$25/20 for DCAC members on Fridays and Saturdays
$20/15 for DCAC members on Thursdays and Sundays