Uta Eisenreich & James Langdon: A Play

This book reproduces Gertrude Steins ‘Objects Lie On A Table (1922), a modernist play told through still life. Objects appear on the eponymous table and are transformed, from their humble selves into symbolic representations or characters in a series of cryptic narratives. Surpassing the representational aspects of language, the text is structurally illegible. James Langdon’s typography supports the melodiousness of the text and breaks it open into smaller units. Visually, the book departs from Stein’s text in an entirely graphic direction, constructing narrative from a set of simple geometric shapes. These forms ask the reader, for example: ‘Am I a saucer, or a moon, or just a circle of printed ink? Published in accompaniment to Things On A Table, a performance by Uta Eisenreich and Eva Meyer-Keller with Katrin Hahner.