“With ripeness the fruit fulfills itself.” That statement, by philosopher Martin Heidegger, surfaces continuously in the original German throughout the play. Its very presence seems to imply that something very profound is transpiring onstage.

But what does the phrase mean? In his book Death and Desire in Hegel, Heidegger and Deleuze, author Brent Adkins writes, “What is the relation between a fruit that is unripe and the fruit that it will be when it achieves ripeness? How does the fruit become ripe? Can anything be added to the fruit to make it ripe? The fruit does not become ripe by the addition of any thing to it. The fruit becomes ripe by itself. When the fruit does become ripe we say that the fruit has fulfilled itself. That which was not yet ripe is now ripe. The fruit has actualized itself. It has brought itself to completion. It has fulfilled itself. In this sense the fruit is already its ripeness, even though it is not yet ripe. However the fruit becomes ripe it becomes it within itself.”

¶ 7:00 PM