Book Of Sand (a fairytale) at Oakland Theater Project

Oakland Theater Project’s 2022 Season culminates with the World Premiere of Book of Sand (a fairytale) from OTP Associate Artistic Director and award-winning playwright Lisa Ramirez. Based on Jorge Luis Borges’ 1975 short story, the tale follows a protagonist who is sold a mysterious book written in an unknown language, with an infinite number of pages—known as the Book of Sand because “neither the book nor the sand has any beginning or end.”

Inspired by magical realism, the tale unfolds as a dreamscape. With each page the protagonist reads, they delve deeper into themselves, confronting one internal world after another. Fascination soon turns to obsession and fear as the protagonist begins to face new facets of their own inner shadow.

As the story moves from one magical reality to another, larger questions arise: Where might the end be? How does one arrive at peace within oneself? How could that peace translate to the world at large? And is the obsession with the journey for such peace antithetical to the journey’s end?