Fig Trees

FIG TREES is a documentary opera about AIDS activists Tim McCaskell of Toronto and Zackie Achmat of Capetown as they fight for access to treatment drugs Documentary interviews speeches press conferences and demonstrations are sampled taken apart and set to music replayed this time as operatic scenes A surreal fictional narrative is intercut with the stories of their struggles against government and the pharmaceutical industry In this fictional world Gertrude Stein decides to write a tragic opera about Tim and Zackie and their saintlike heroism She kidnaps them transports them to Niagara Falls and forces them to sing a series of complicated avantgarde vocal compositions However when Zackie ends his treatment strike and starts taking his pills Gertrude realizes that there will be no more tragedy and thus no more opera