The Bureau of Surrealist Research, written by Deborah Bryant, can be seen on Monday, February 27,  7:00 p.m. at Center Stage Theater.

About The Bureau

This play takes its germ idea and title directly from
a loosely affiliated group of Surrealist artists and writers
from the 1920s who attempted a scientific method to
explore the mind’s unconscious activity in an effort to
discover a kind of coherence between the seeming
contradictions of dreams and reality.
The Bureau, or Centrale Surréaliste, opened its office
in the 7th arrondissment, or borough, at 15 Rue
de Grenelle in Paris, France. Inviting any and all through
their doors to “unite all those who are interested in
expression where thought is freed from any intellectual
preoccupations––”, at least two members would greet
visitors, conduct interviews, and take notes, while in another
room, yet other members discussed this new resource and
drew from its well to exchange ideas and develop texts and
other works, including the scandalous and revolutionary
journal La Révolution surréaliste.

About Lynn Margulis

This play derives inspiration from American biologist
Lynn Margulis (1938 – 2011). She asked and explored
interesting questions that took her to the limits of her
discipline, in the process amassing Master’s degrees in
zoology and genetics from the University of Wisconsin
and a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California,
Berkeley. Lynn’s endosymbiotic theory, which countered
the Darwinian notion of “survival of the fittest”, posits
that eukaryotic cells (cells with nuclei, like our own) evolved
from the cooperative merger of free-living nonnucleated
bacteria. Her radical ideas were met with hostility, but
they have added to the canon of human knowledge by
forever altering the concept of how life arose on Earth.