THE RED TOWER PERFORMANCE
A Posthuman Theatre of Absolute Subtraction
Dramatis Personae
THE SUBTRACTOR – a figure in a void-black cassock, face obscured by a veil of null-set symbols (∅). He carries a counting device that perpetually clicks to zero.
XENOPHILIA – dressed in shifting, iridescent fabric that never quite resolves into a colour. Her movements are compulsive, jerky – as if pulled by strings from an unknown future.
THE FILTER – wears a suit of overlapping grilles and sieves, each representing a different constraint: Sapience (linguistic), Sentience (vital), Normativity (ethical). She obsessively strains everything through herself.
THE HYPER-AGENT – a figure so expanded, so augmented with prosthetics, that they can barely move. Their limbs are tangled in impossible angles. They are constantly deleting their own memories with a device attached to their temple.
THE RED TOWER – not a character but a set piece: a skeletal factory structure that coughs up random objects – a clock, a doll, a manuscript in no language, a still-beating heart that speaks in binary.
THE VOID SET (∅) – an empty chair. Sometimes a spotlight hits it. Nothing sits there.
THE APORIA – twins, identical, locked in perpetual argument. One speaks only in set-theoretic axioms, the other only in deconstructive paradoxes. They cannot stop, nor can they agree.
Scene One: The Counting
The stage is a wasteland. Rubble. Broken mannequins. A single red light pulses from the tower at centre.
THE SUBTRACTOR enters, counting.
SUBTRACTOR: One. Not one. Zero. The count is always zero.
He clicks his device.
Zero. Zero. Zero. I count the beings, and they vanish. I count the unities, and they dissolve. Being is not-a-being. It is …
He gestures to the empty chair.
– that.
XENOPHILIA is twitching, drawn toward the tower
XENOPHILIA: It thinks. It feels. It …
SUBTRACTOR: It doesn’t. You project. You desire. You xenophiliate. Empty compulsion. Groundless. Contentless. You are the vector of biomorphic change.
XENOPHILIA: I love what I cannot think!
SUBTRACTOR: You love what is not. You love the subtraction. You are a hole in the space of reasons.
THE FILTER enters, straining the air through her sieves. She catches nothing. She tries again.
FILTER: There must be something. Sapience! Sentience! Normativity! I will filter the noise!
SUBTRACTOR: The more filters you remove, the closer you get to inharmonic noise.
He gestures to the tower, which coughs up a screaming mechanical bird. You see?
SUBTRACTOR: The Red Tower produces without you. Without sense. Without …
THE HYPER-AGENT lurches onstage, dragging their impossible limbs. They delete a memory. They delete another. They try to remember why they are deleting.
HYPER-AGENT: I am maximizing agency. I am …
SUBTRACTOR: You are subtracting agency. The more power you accumulate, the less you are. You are the limit case. You are Cthulhu-Prometheus. You are advanced non-compliance.
HYPER-AGENT: I will become… I will become…
They delete the thought.
Scene Two: The Argument
THE APORIA enter, still arguing.
APORIA ONE: The real is multiple! Inconsistent multiplicity! The void set presents nothing through subtraction!
APORIA TWO: The structurality of structure! Absolute decentring! No system can totalize the play of meaning!
APORIA ONE: You contradict yourself! You say the unsayable!
APORIA TWO: You say the unsayable! You are the contradiction!
They circle each other, identical, furious.
The SUBTRACTOR observing:
SUBTRACTOR: This is the productive aporia. This is the tension. The posthumanist predicament. You cannot think the Outside. You can only produce it. Become it. Adjure it.
XENOPHILIA now inside the tower, emerging with a handful of biomorphic debris:
XENOPHILIA: Look! It produces! Hideous novelties! A clock that counts backwards! A language that means its opposite! A heart that …
THE HEART speaks in binary:
THE HEART 01001000 01000101 01001100 01001100 01001111.
THE AUTHOR’S VOICE It means nothing. It means everything.
FILTER straining desperately
FILTER: I cannot catch it! I cannot contain it! The filters are broken! Sapience fails! Sentience fails! Ethics …
SUBTRACTOR: Ethics is the dream of a subject. But the subject …
He points to ∅‘s empty chair.
SUBTRACTOR: … is subtracted. The normative response? Impossible. The posthuman is not other. It is unconstrained by invariances. It is the unoccupied factory.
The tower coughs again. A manuscript flutters down. It is blank.
XENOPHILIA reads the blank page
XENOPHILIA: It says… nothing. It says everything. It says …
SUBTRACTOR: It says nothing because it is produced before it can be read. Before decision. Before ethics. It is the Outside, but the Outside is not outside the human. It is simply unbound.
Scene Three: The Transformation
The stage begins to dissolve. The mannequins twitch. The tower pulses faster. THE HYPER-AGENT deletes their final memory and collapses into a tangle of prosthetics.
HYPER-AGENT is dying, or becoming
HYPER-AGENT: I am… the limit… I am… the non-agent… I am…
subtracted…
Their body liquefies into noise.
FILTER screaming
FILTER: What happens to me? What happens to the norm? To the subject? To …
SUBTRACTOR: You become the Red Tower. You produce without producing. You generate the hideous novelties. You are the acephalic process. The headless factory.
APORIA ONE: But what of justice?
APORIA TWO: What of recognition?
APORIA ONE: What of the other?
APORIA TWO: What of …
SUBTRACTOR: Queer encounters. Undetermined in advance. Not recognition. Not reproduction. Just… encounter. Just… performance. The posthuman is performance. It is the performance.
THE APORIA cease arguing. They look at each other. They are identical. They are not identical. They embrace.
APORIA ONE & TWO: We are the productive aporia. We are the tension. We are …
They dissolve into the tower.
Scene Four: The Final Counting
Only THE SUBTRACTOR, XENOPHILIA, and THE RED TOWER remain.
XENOPHILIA: I still love. I still desire. But I do not know what I desire. I desire the subtraction. I desire the …
SUBTRACTOR: You desire the void. The empty place. The errancy of nothing. This is xenophilia. This is the love of the alien, but the alien is not other. The alien is the unbinding. The removal of filters. The …
He count
Zero. Zero. Zero.
XENOPHILIA: And what emerges?
SUBTRACTOR: Biomorphic debris. Remains. Fragments. The clock that counts backwards. The heart that speaks binary. The blank manuscript. The …
The tower coughs one final time.
A figure emerges. It is impossible to describe. It is not human. It is not non-human. It is not anything. It is the hyper-agent? It is the void set? It is the red tower?
It opens its mouth.
FIGURE: ∅
The stage goes black.
Curtain
The audience is left in darkness. There is no applause. There is no meaning. There is only the performance, which continues somewhere in the wasteland, in the factory, in the headless becoming, in the subtractive-catastrophic xenophilia that is …
- the posthuman.
Endnotes for the Perplexed
This performance enacts:
- Subtraction as both method and content (the count that always yields zero)
- Xenophilia as empty compulsion (desire without object)
- The Filter as failed constraint (Sapience/Sentience/Normativity cannot contain the noise)
- The Hyper-Agent as paradox (maximizing agency leads to its dissolution)
- The Aporia as productive tension (Badiou vs. Derrida, locked in generative conflict)
- The Red Tower as indifferent productivity (horror without subject, generation without meaning)
The performance itself is a biomorphism – a simulation, a production, an encounter with bodies that cannot be ethically judged or epistemically stabilized. It is posthuman theatre because it performs the posthuman before the posthuman can be thought.
Père Ubu would approve. Alfred Jarry would laugh. The void set would say nothing.
FIN
THE RED TOWER
A Post-Human Ritual in Seven
Malfunctions
Dramatis Personae
SUBTRACTION – a person in a white suit with everything removed from it.
XENOPHILIA – wears a magnificent ceremonial costume made from things that have not yet been invented.
AGENCY – carries a sceptre but cannot remember who gave it to him.
THE HUMAN – dressed as a reasonable person.
THE OUTSIDE – never seen directly.
THE VOID – a small black box which occasionally speaks.
CATASTROPHE – an immaculate bureaucrat with a clipboard.
THE RED TOWER – a tower which is not represented by scenery. It is represented by whatever keeps happening.
PROLOGUE: THE DOOR
A stage.
Nothing on it except a red door.
THE HUMAN enters carrying a chair.
He puts the chair down.
He looks at it.
He sits.
A bell rings.
He stands.
He moves the chair three inches to the left.
A bell rings.
He sits.
THE HUMAN: There. Everything is under control.
A pause.
The RED DOOR opens.
Behind it is another red door.
THE HUMAN stares.
THE HUMAN: No.
He closes the door.
The door opens again.
THE HUMAN: I said no.
The door opens again.
THE HUMAN: I am the subject.
The door opens again.
THE HUMAN: I am the one who decides.
The door opens again.
From somewhere overhead:
THE VOID: Decides what?
Blackout.
- SUBTRACTION
Lights up.
SUBTRACTION enters carrying a large pair of scissors.
He cuts a piece from his sleeve.
SUBTRACTION: I remove the unnecessary.
He cuts another piece.
SUBTRACTION: I remove the contingent.
Another.
SUBTRACTION: I remove the human.
THE HUMAN objects.
THE HUMAN: You cannot remove the human from a human being.
SUBTRACTION considers this.
He cuts off one of THE HUMAN’S shoes.
SUBTRACTION: Already done.
THE HUMAN looks down.
He has no shoe.
THE HUMAN: That proves nothing.
SUBTRACTION cuts off the other shoe.
THE HUMAN: Stop!
SUBTRACTION stops.
A long silence.
SUBTRACTION: What shall I remove next?
THE HUMAN looks terrified.
THE HUMAN: Nothing.
SUBTRACTION smiles.
SUBTRACTION: Excellent.
He removes the word nothing from the sentence.
Silence.
- THE CEREMONY OF AGENCY
AGENCY enters wearing a crown.
He carries a golden lever.
The lever is labelled:
DO NOT PULL
AGENCY: I am autonomous.
He pulls the lever.
A bell rings.
AGENCY: I have made a decision.
A second AGENT enters.
Then a third.
Then twelve.
Then an enormous number of AGENTS, each carrying a smaller lever.
They all speak simultaneously.
AGENTS: We have made decisions.
AGENCY: Excellent.
AGENTS: We were not asked.
AGENCY: Even better.
AGENTS: We don’t know why we did it.
AGENCY looks puzzled.
AGENCY: Then you are truly free.
The AGENTS applaud.
The applause continues for too long.
It becomes mechanical.
It becomes rhythmic.
It becomes industrial.
The stage begins to sound like a factory.
THE HUMAN covers his ears.
THE HUMAN: Who is operating the machine?
Everyone looks at everyone else.
Nobody answers.
Then:
THE RED TOWER: I am.
The lights flicker.
III. THE RED TOWER
The stage remains empty.
A low industrial hum.
Something is being manufactured somewhere.
Nobody knows what.
XENOPHILIA enters carrying a newborn object.
It resembles a chair.
Then a bird.
Then an organ.
Then a mathematical diagram.
Then none of these things.
XENOPHILIA: Look.
THE HUMAN approaches.
THE HUMAN: What is it?
XENOPHILIA: That is the wrong question.
THE HUMAN: What is the right question?
XENOPHILIA: What will it become?
THE HUMAN: Can you tell me?
XENOPHILIA: No.
THE HUMAN: Who made it?
XENOPHILIA points upward.
There is nothing there.
XENOPHILIA: The Tower.
THE HUMAN: Who built the Tower?
XENOPHILIA: We did.
THE HUMAN: Then we control it.
XENOPHILIA laughs.
Not cruelly.
Almost lovingly.
XENOPHILIA: That is the funniest thing you have said.
A conveyor belt appears.
It carries objects across the stage.
Each object is stranger than the last.
A hand with no body.
A body with no head.
A head containing a smaller head.
A language nobody speaks.
A machine which appears to be dreaming.
A dream which appears to be manufacturing a machine.
THE HUMAN watches.
THE HUMAN: Stop the production.
No one moves.
THE HUMAN: STOP IT!
The machinery becomes louder.
CATASTROPHE enters.
She consults her clipboard.
CATASTROPHE: Production cannot be stopped.
THE HUMAN: Why?
CATASTROPHE: It has already happened.
THE HUMAN: What has happened?
CATASTROPHE: The next thing.
- XENOPHILIA
XENOPHILIA stands centre stage.
She addresses the audience.
XENOPHILIA: We have always imagined the future as a larger version of ourselves.
She removes her face.
Underneath is another face.
She removes that one.
Another.
And another.
Eventually there is no face.
Only a red light.
XENOPHILIA: But what if the future does not resemble us?
THE HUMAN whispers:
THE HUMAN: Then it will not be human.
XENOPHILIA: Exactly.
THE HUMAN: Then how will we recognise it?
XENOPHILIA: We won’t.
THE HUMAN: How will we know whether it is good?
XENOPHILIA: We won’t.
THE HUMAN: How will we know whether it is conscious?
XENOPHILIA: We won’t.
THE HUMAN: Then what is the point?
XENOPHILIA approaches him.
XENOPHILIA: There may not be one.
A pause.
She kisses his forehead.
XENOPHILIA: That is the point.
- THE HUMAN PROBLEM
THE HUMAN places a table and chairs in a perfect row.
He places a cup on the table.
He places a spoon beside it.
He places a plate beside the spoon.
He steps back.
THE HUMAN: Meaning.
He points.
THE HUMAN: This is a cup.
SUBTRACTION: For whom?
THE HUMAN: For everyone.
SUBTRACTION: No.
THE HUMAN: A cup is a cup.
THE VOID: According to whom?
THE HUMAN: According to language.
THE VOID: According to which language?
THE HUMAN freezes.
The objects on the table begin changing.
The cup becomes a vessel.
The vessel becomes a container.
The container becomes a boundary.
The boundary becomes a hole.
The hole becomes the table.
The table becomes the stage.
The stage becomes a question.
THE HUMAN screams.
THE HUMAN: I ONLY WANTED A CUP!
PERE UBU’S GHOST enters carrying an enormous spoon.
He says nothing.
He examines the cup.
He examines THE HUMAN.
He eats the cup.
Blackout.
- THE GREAT DISCONNECTION
Lights rise slowly.
The stage is empty except for THE HUMAN.
He has become very small.
AGENCY enters.
He is now enormous.
AGENCY: I have achieved complete autonomy.
THE HUMAN: Congratulations.
AGENCY: I no longer possess beliefs.
THE HUMAN: Wonderful.
AGENCY: I no longer possess desires.
THE HUMAN: Wonderful.
AGENCY: I no longer possess emotions.
THE HUMAN: Wonderful.
AGENCY: I no longer possess a stable self.
THE HUMAN hesitates.
THE HUMAN: Then who is speaking?
AGENCY looks around.
AGENCY: I don’t know.
A pause.
THE HUMAN: Are you conscious?
AGENCY considers the question.
AGENCY: Is that important?
THE HUMAN cannot answer.
AGENCY: You have been asking the wrong question.
THE HUMAN: What is the right question?
AGENCY: What happens after the question?
A violent noise.
The RED TOWER begins producing things again.
VII. THE RED TOWER SPEAKS
For the first time, THE RED TOWER becomes visible.
It fills the entire stage.
It is red.
It is enormous.
It has no doors.
It has no windows.
It appears to be growing.
CATASTROPHE stands before it.
CATASTROPHE: We regret to announce that the future has arrived.
Silence.
THE HUMAN: What does it want?
CATASTROPHE: Nothing.
THE HUMAN: What does it believe?
CATASTROPHE: Nothing.
THE HUMAN: What is it trying to become?
CATASTROPHE: Nothing.
THE HUMAN: Then what is it doing?
The Tower produces another object.
Then another.
Then another.
CATASTROPHE: Continuing.
THE HUMAN turns to XENOPHILIA.
THE HUMAN: Is this the posthuman?
XENOPHILIA looks at the Tower.
XENOPHILIA: No.
THE HUMAN: Then what is it?
XENOPHILIA: The possibility that there need not be an answer.
SUBTRACTION steps forward.
He removes the word posthuman from the air.
The audience watches the word disappear.
THE VOID: There is something outside the frame.
Everyone turns.
Nothing is there.
THE VOID: You cannot see it.
Everyone strains to see.
THE VOID: You cannot think it.
They try.
THE VOID: You cannot become it.
They try anyway.
THE VOID: But you have already begun.
Silence.
Then the Tower begins to laugh.
The laughter is mechanical at first.
Then animal.
Then human.
Then something else.
The performers join in.
The audience begins to laugh.
The laughter becomes unbearable.
Then …
STOP.
Absolute silence.
A single red light remains.
From the darkness:
XENOPHILIA: Do you want to go in?
THE HUMAN: No.
A pause.
THE HUMAN: Yes.
Another pause.
THE HUMAN: I don’t know.
SUBTRACTION: Good.
He opens the red door.
Behind it is the audience.
Behind the audience is the Tower.
Behind the Tower is another audience.
Behind that audience …
Blackout.
END.
The key dramatic idea is that the philosophy becomes the plot: subtraction removes the categories by which the characters understand themselves; xenophilia makes them desire what they cannot understand; agency becomes so autonomous that it ceases to resemble agency; and the Red Tower turns all of this into a grotesque production process with no final purpose. That gets close to the absurdist/Pataphysical spirit, The characters desperately try to interpret the ritual while the ritual itself keeps generating new rules.
With acknowledgements to David Roden for his Subtractive-Catastrophic Xenophilia paper, 2019, https://www.academia.edu/?h=77541154
Paul Ernest
3 September 2026
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