Despite the shortened days and mounds of snow that inundate Chicago in the post-holiday season, the city’s theater scene comes alive and flourishes. Unique shows provide a true treat that enable us to escape to another world while also allowing us to remain in the warm indoors. This February, the Interrobang Theatre Project is bringing “The Pitchfork Disney” to life on stage. The DePaulia spoke with DePaul alumni and cast members Mark Lancaster and Aislinn Kerchaert to gain insight to this raw, haunting and deeply profound show.

The DePaulia: Can you tell me, in your own words, a little bit about the show in general?

Mark Lancaster: I find it hard to describe, actually. They are a brother and a sister who have spent the last 10 years holing themselves up in their home. They never go outside, they don’t have any other sort of contact. They have a very dependent relationship. They take care of one another. The hierarchy slips a little bit. They play games to console each other, to take care of one another and to take authority over one another. Things take a real turn when they introduce a stranger into their home and then start another series of control.

Aislinn Kerchaert: It’s about a brother and sister, Haley and Presley who live in a post-apocalyptic London, or so you think. They don’t leave the house; save to go shopping, and they are addicted to chocolate and sleeping pills. About halfway through the play, someone else appears, Cosmo Disney and his cohort, Pitchfork Cavalier, and things happen. So it’s very much an absurdist piece. It’s part of the in-your-face genre of playwrights from the early ’90s and the U.K.

DP: What is it like to perform in a production that has such a dark nature? Does it depart from shows that you are typically a part of or is it something that you feel at home doing?

ML: Given my physicality, I am frequently cast in roles that are large and tough and brutish and unsettling so this isn’t too far of a departure from what I tend to do when I am cast. It’s either that I am playing some sort of creature with prosthetic makeup on my face in a very physical role, or I am in drag as often as not.

AK: It’s definitely weird to have to deal with a show that is dark. I’ve done dark things before. It’s just like any other thing, though. You have to take it for what it is as a piece of art. Why call something dark and something happy? In the end, it has a message to communicate and even though this play does have that shock value and that dark element to it, it’s for a greater purpose.

DP: Can you tell me about the character that you portray in “The Pitchfork Disney”?

ML: I play the Pitchfork Cavalier, who is the companion of the stranger who gets brought into the house. He is … it’s a little hard to define. He is quiet, physically imposing, terrifying, infantile. What is frightening and unsettling about him tends to be less centered on what he is actually doing versus what you are afraid that he is actually going to be doing.

AK: I am going to be playing Haley Stray. She is the twin sister of Presley and I guess the only female in the play. She is 28 years old, and I’m pretty sure she hasn’t left the house in about 10 years. Haley, to me, is very much a grownup child who is really dependent on her chocolate and on her sleeping pills and on her stories, on any fix that can get her through the day and can get her outside of herself and to not have to face herself because to face herself is to face that fear.

DP: What role has acting played in your life this far and where do you see it going from here?

ML: Acting has taken over my life some years ago. When I applied to graduate school, the first time was in 2005. Once I realized it was what I wanted to do with my life, all of my energy has bent towards making that become a reality. Every hour of my day has at least one moment when I am trying to further my career, look for another part, find another audition, perfect the craft. It branches out of acting as well. To other artistically, theatrically related productions, as well. I’ve gotten into stage combat and I am a member of a burlesque troupe.

AK: I have always wanted to be an actor. I was in my first play in kindergarten and it really clicked for me in high school that I liked doing this. I went to DePaul, The Theatre School, and that was a great experience. I learned so much about my craft and myself as a person. Since graduating about a year and a half ago I’ve been “living the dream” as my teachers used to like to say. I’m lucky to be working and to have the ability to make my own work and I am very grateful to be in a show. It can be challenging, sometimes, to have a day job and to be an actor but it is just a part of the game.

DP: Do you have any words of wisdom for aspiring young actors at DePaul or in general?

ML: Not just at DePaul, but in general. What I have found is that persistence is the key. The only way that you are going to guarantee that you fail is to quit.

AK: Remember why you want to do it. Remember that it is about self-expression and about the art form. It is so easy to get lost in self promotion and to get an agent and to try to get a job but come back to remembering that it’s just you expressing yourself or expressing a part of the world to make something better.

“The Pitchfork Disney” will be at The Athenaeum Theatre at 2936 N. Southport Ave. from Feb. 6-March 2.