Winter's Tale: Delightful, Whimsical, Joy to Watch

Joneal Joplin and Jens Rasmussen

Despite a mauling by a bear and the death of a child, Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival’s production of “The Winter’s Tale” has a delightful, whimsical tone that makes it a joy to watch.

Under Drew Fracher’s direction, it’s very much a visual production, both in the kinetic blocking that makes much of Act II a medley of physical comedy and in the show’s set and costume design.

Written late in Shakespeare’s life and classified as a “romance,” “The Winter’s Tale” begins as a tragedy and ends as a comedy and feels like an upside-down “Romeo and Juliet” in that respect, including its focus on the adults instead of the young lovers.

With Fracher’s production, Shakespeare’s tale of Sicilia’s King Leontes’ irrational jealousy and its dire consequences — his son’s, his wife’s and an honorable nobleman’s deaths, the end of a life-long friendship with Bohemia’s King Polixenes — turns on contrasts and humor.

As a prologue, Fracher establishes an urban, aggressive tone for Sicilia with a dance at court by four women whose appearance is best described as starched and whose choreography has a militaristic undertone to it.

Marcus Stephens’ set for Sicilia extends that tone with its sparseness, gray walls and vertical blinds that hang above the sides and back of the stage, their shadows appearing to look like prison bars cast across the stage.

By contrast, his Bohemia is a world of nature, filled with trees and foliage, while the back wall disappears and is replaced by a bright blue background.

Similarly, costume designer Christine Turbitt gives the Sicilians a formal, restrictive look, while the Bohemians’ clothing has an earthy and free-flowing look to it.

Fracher further delineates the differences between Sicilia and Bohemia with his use of music: The opening dance sequence relies on loud, recorded percussion instruments and has an assaultive quality to it, for example, while the young people’s folk dance in Act II utilizes violin, viola and guitar played by members of the cast and brings the community together in celebration.

But Fracher’s use of humor provides the most subtle and obvious contrasts between Sicilia and Bohemia.

Leontes, who defies the Oracle of Apollo, and the Bohemian pickpocket Autolycus both operate outside the law, and each is a primary source of humor in this production, one as the object of the humor, the other as the engine for it.

Although Leontes’ jealousy may be unfounded, Grant Goodman makes the character’s sense of betrayal genuine, as he does Leontes’ paranoia, but he rarely and only late in Act I brings the king to a state of rage.

Instead, he plays the jealousy with an understated tone — it’s all delivered as asides — that’s both reasonable in its delivery, if occasionally cutting, and, as a result, humorous, as if Fracher and Goodman are commenting on how illogical Leontes’ jealousy is by bringing it to the fore and poking fun at it.

The engaging Giles Davies, by contrast, plays Autolycus as a happy-go-lucky all-around rogue — both in his winking delivery and his large, flowing movements that make the audience believe Autolycus improvises his way through life — whose crimes fit into the genre of comic caper.

Davies’ free-wheeling comedy invites the audience to relate to Autolycus as co-conspirators, whereas the rational demeanor Goodman brings to Leontes creates humor but also creates tension and makes the audience nervous.

Although the rest of the cast in major roles turn in the sort of performances that appear effortless but rely on precise technique, two performances standout, in particular:

As Paulina, an engrossing Wendy Robie is intense and provides the production its moral center with the sense of conviction and power she brings to the role.

L. Peter Callender, double-cast as Antigonus (the epitome of honorable in his depiction) and The Old Shepherd is a joy to watch as the latter, with Callender bursting with life and dance in the role.

As for the bear, it’s giant, furry, growls and, thanks to Kevin Dreyer’s lighting design, is outlined by lightning flashes during the storm that make it look even larger and fiercer because it becomes more of a giant blur and shadow than a distinct creature.

By Andrew S. Hughes South Bend Tribune

Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival

Jens is excited to again join forces with director Drew Fracher, with whom he's done two award winning

productions (Skin Tight and Gruesome Playground Injuries.) Together with an outstanding cast that includes Giles Davies, Grant Goodman, Shanara Gabrielle, Wendy Robie, and Joneal Joplin he will be appearing in the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival's production of The Winter's Tale.

Tickets and more info here.

Rasmussen: Simply Mesmerizing

Jens Rasmussen in Conference of the Birds

“The way is open but there is neither traveler nor guide.” That is the closing statement and tagline of Folger Theatre’s production of The Conference of the Birds. Based on the poem by Farid Uddi Attar the stage version is written by Jean-Claude Carrière and Peter Brook. Directed by Aaron Posner this production is a flurry of interpretive dance and movement mingled with the brilliant audio creations of Helen Hayes Award-winning Composer Tom Teasley. The Conference of the Birds allows you to ponder the greater meanings of life along its spiritual and metaphysical journeys and paths.

Scenic Designer Meghan Raham creates a simplistic approach to lining the stage of the Folger for the production. With long stripes of bark-like brownness hanging from the ceiling the stage is reminiscent of a forest or some other wooded gathering where the birds of the world might congregate. Interspersed with columns and backdrops of mirrored surfaces, the set is completed in its mythic proportions with the notions of Lighting Designer Jennifer Schriever. Over two dozen bulbs of various size and shape are hung at various lengths from the ceiling down over the stage and out over the audience, hints and shadows of fireflies or other natural light sources found in the Avian kingdom.

Costume Designer Olivera Gajic takes a similarly minimalist approach to her designs, creating the great birds of the world in shades of grays, browns and subtle shifts in earthy tones like green. This was both a great disappointment and a clever tactic to instill upon the performance. By limiting the physical appearance of the bird’s costumes it ensures the audience must not only imagine their great plumage but rely heavily upon the actor’s physical gestures and embodiments of their avian bird of choice. We do see a hint of color when defining the Peacock and her proud colorful feathers, but outside of this, the rags of dirt and clay coloring leave much to the imagination.

Director Aaron Posner working with Choreographer Erika Chong Shuch crafts moments of intense beauty upon the stage in their execution of exploratory movement. Many of the dances are not dances so much as they are representations of excursions or other parts of the poem as the tale unfolds. Shuch offers a unique approach to the dance work in this production as all of the steps and movements are meant to be performed not by ordinary humans but by humans embodying both physically and mentally the spirit of birds. His casting choices are more than appropriate, picking the smallest of the cast, Britt Duff, as the sparrow; a long elegant and limber body to play the Heron (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) and a bulky muscular fellow to play the Falcon (Jay Dunn).

Posney’s consistency with the adaptation of human to bird is wavering. At the beginning of the performance when it is quite clear the actors upon stage each represent a great bird of the world, they do so flawlessly. Jutting necks, twitches of the face and head, as well as strutting limbs and ruffled arms to imitate wings; all of these gestures and many more create live birds on the stage from these 11 performers without the aid of fancy costumes or real feathers. The contrast as these “birds” become humans during the Hoopoe’s tales is sharp and clearly defined. The problem comes late in the story, as the birds make their journey across the seven valleys toward the mighty bird king.

After the intermission the actors lose their bird-like qualities and momentum. We no longer see them twitching their heads about like the curious birds from the first half, or scrunching their physical form to look more like the avian counterparts they are portraying. What we do see is weary actors on stage. And while the characters at this point are meant to be exhausted as their perilous journey continues, seeing them completely lose touch with their inner bird is disheartening and disappointing.

The acting is stupendous. The only person who never acts like a bird is the Hoopoe (Patty Gallagher). While she is the leader of the birds gathered and often the narrative story teller among them, seeing her acting as a normal human with no bird like movements or qualities was confusing but not in an enigmatic sense, only a disproportionate one. Gallagher’s performance is engaging, each story she alights to the stage is crisp and brilliant as if being told for the very first time, and her rallying spirit to guide the birds to action is afresh with vigor and lightning.

While each of the birds makes an entertaining appearance, like the Parrot (Robert Barry Fleming) when he shows jittery nerves about leaving his cage, or the Peacock (Jessica Frances Dukes) when she shows up larger than life to squawk, strut her stuff, and show off her colors; the best performances come from these actors when they shed their feathers and slip into the Hoopoe’s stories as humans. The most specific example of this is when the Magpie (Jens Rasmussen) and the Heron (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) engage in a dreamlike sequence as a princess and slave who share a passionate evening together. Stewart and Rasmussen’s bodies entwine to a sultry beat during an exploratory piece of dance-like movement that is simply mesmerizing; every eye in the house glued to them, entranced upon their physical expressions to the point where the Hoopoe’s narrations are almost completely drowned away in the background.

Mingling with the incredible orchestrations of Tom Teasley is the Nightingale (Annapurna Sriram) and her beautifully haunting song. Sriram plays a small guitar and sings a siren’s song throughout the piece, echoing her voice like the nightingale she portrays with a sweet sorrow. Often joined by others in song, including Britt Duff, Jessica Frances Dukes, and Celeste Jones, the pristine voices of these lady-birds will melt your heart, especially when Duff takes to singing in the valley of love.

The music never misses a beat throughout the production. Teasley’s wild orchestrations are primal in nature and echo cries of these birds without falling into the generic hackneyed trap of bird calling. His rhythms are fierce and drive many of dance numbers with a raucous beat and wild feeling of freedom behind them. Teasley’s composition sounds as if it were derived from the very spirit of the earth; echoing a time of nature with the reality of the world of these birds.

If you can find no other reason to see this production, seeing Tom Teasley in action and hearing his magnificent music is definitely cause to do so.

By Amanda Gunther for DC Metro Theatre Arts

Rasmussen: Comic Good Sense & Sizzle...

Jens Rasmussen in Conference of the Birds

In the 13th century the Catholic Church, an opponent of drama and its lusty spectacles since the days of the 3rd century theologian Tertullian (whose near Ayatollah-like rants against public amusement will surely earn him a spot on a future Homer Simpson episode), broke its theatrical prohibition and allowed Franciscan and Dominican missionaries to spread the gospel through storytelling. The leap from storytelling to theatre is but a hop and a skip, and theatre’s revival throughout Europe began, albeit didactically.

Although theatre in the Muslim world was not prohibited, Islamic strictures against representation, and hence spectacle, generated similar tensions. As a result, poetry, which is focused on the word and not the body, spread rapidly, and with music, became the Muslim world’s most popular artistic medium.

The Folger Theatre’s Washington area premiere of Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière’s stage-adaptation of Farid Uddi Attar’s master poem, The Conference of the Birds, captures that sense of the sublime. Without being overly didactic or dogmatic, its theatrical story offers its audience the unique opportunity to go on a spiritual adventure.

Yes, The Conference of the Birds is an unabashedly sacred tale with no mythical land of Narnia or magical sovereigns like the Wizard of Oz or Voldemort to distract our focus. Rather, these birds and their oh so human foibles begin their journey with clear intent: to find their one true king, Simorgh, and in so doing overcome the discord of the world. Their king, they learn, lives somewhere beyond the seven valleys and, unlike more earthly kings, Simorgh won’t cut off a subject’s head for answering a question incorrectly.

And then there was music. Even before the play began, composer Tom Teasley enchanted us with an wondrous array of percussion instruments and original compositions that skillfully blended the intonations of the ancient with the rhythms of the modern. His music transported us to the poetic shores of Persia without being solemnized by the exoticism of it. We were restrained.

Helping hold us in check was the scenic design by Meghan Raham. On the one hand mirrored surfaces reflected back at us images of ourselves. On the other, large burlap sculptural banners hung from the mirrored columns. These expressionistic designs defied representation, being textured landscapes invoking geography and poverty more than symbol.

When the birds finally assembled on stage we were once again struck by the restraint—but not in the casting. A visually dynamic cast of birds had assembled: this was indeed a conference of the world’s birds, and they were indeed fed up with its condition. No, we saw the restraint in their visualization.

To be sure, birds offer a costumer’s imagination a vast palette of possibilities, particularly when you have such a wide variety of species to choose from: falcon, sparrow, owl, peacock, partridge, nightingale, duck, parrot, hoopoe, dove, magpie, heron. For some reason, however, these feathered creatures were muted and toned down, almost as if—following the warning of the church fathers—someone feared that audiences might be bedazzled by the spectacle of it all and miss the message.

Indeed, because of this visual restraint, the challenge of this production lay entirely on the shoulders of the production’s performers, as narrators, actors, singers, dancers, musicians, and movers. Their job, it seems, was not so much to entertain us but, as the hoopoe did them, guide us through the spiritual terrain of the play. They would be aided by designer Jennifer Schriever’s lights, which not only cast many of the ensemble’s more dynamic tableaus in a memorable light, but also by the sudden transitions those lights provided. For the most part, however, with no grand spectacle to assist them, the ensemble would have to rely on the details of character and performance to carry us through to the play’s conclusion.

For the most part, this flock of strange fowl put in a strong performance, engaging us in splendid details, from the shimmering of duck’s feathers (played by Katie deBuys) to the immaculate head movements of falcon (played by Jay Dunn). Tara Giordano’s partridge seized our imaginations each time she waddled across the stage, and the adorable jitters of Britt Duff’s sparrow, plus her stunningly simple rendition of love, held our attention each time she wanted to take flight. And I have to mention the mesmerizing presence of Tiffany Rachelle Stewart’s heron; indeed, when Stewart portrays the princess in love with the slave, played with comic good sense by Jens Rasmussen, the two quickly and effectively shift the play into a sizzle of romantic images.

The most difficult role in The Conference of the Birds is that of the hoopoe, however, played by Patty Gallagher. Like Virgil in Dante’s Comedy, she has to guide her spiritual yearners, being optimistic when necessary yet clear and stern when needed. She more than any character also has to act as liaison between the audience with its modern sensibility and this 12th century Sufi poem that speaks of a transcendental reality which most westerners might know only if they’ve spent years exploring Jungian psychology. Ms. Gallagher does well embodying the encouraging mother figure to this tribe of feathers; but when this chick or that hen struggles too vociferously against the way, she resorts too frequently to the choices of a harried schoolteacher.

A part of her struggle seemed to be with the text itself, which came across as too flat in places. The first act is particularly difficult as it focuses on the birds’ fears and their resulting loss of faith in the journey. Director Aaron Posner’s sense of the pictorial is strong, but he needed to find more variety in the birds’ choices when it came to their resistance to the trek and to the hoopoe’s way of rallying them.

These first act missteps do not take the vitality away from the splendor of this epic journey of enlightenment, however; and Peter Brook’s work in the modern theatre is well represented here. We cannot be reminded too often of the fact that if theatre cannot achieve a purpose greater than entertainment, then it will not long serve any purpose at all, other than as an amusement for today’s equivalent to the kings and queens of yesterday. Brook has spent a good portion of his theatrical life seeking to lend theatre that larger function, as an organizer of community across regional and national boundaries.The Conference of the Birds is a fantastic vehicle for this type of cross-border work, and the Folger’s production is well worth the enlightenment.

by Robert Michael Oliver

The Ensemble’s Commitment is Total

How easy it is to drop out of the journey of self-discovery, with all the trials and temptations surrounding us. Yet how rewarding to stay the course. In the 1970s, a visionary director led his company through rural Africa, performing an adaptation of a 12th-century Persian poem about the birds of the world on a quest to find their king. The legacy of his artistic journey is best summed up by The Guardian‘s Michael Billington: “to reinforce the centrality of the shared experience, to clear the stage of clutter and to realize the need for ecstasy.”

His journey transformed theater.

However, I’m not sure how necessary it is to know anything about that director, Peter Brook, before seeing The Conference of the Birds, or even to know anything about the Sufi mystic who wrote the poem, Farid Uddi Attar, whom Rumi considered “the spirit.” Inside all of us is that same desire for total transcendence. Under the helm of director Aaron Posner,Folger Shakespeare Theatre’s production has a gentle, exquisite beauty that is as difficult and rewarding as that journey. It deserves more than one viewing, and will haunt the mind beyond.

The Conference of the Birds begins with a series of allegories told by the Hoopoe bird, as she (Patty Gallagher) urges an assembly of birds to start on a quest to find their king, the Simorgh. One by one, the birds’ excuses are swept aside by the Hoopoe’s teachings, whose guidance is typical guru: in order to be filled with enlightenment, you have to be emptied first. The birds will embark on a dangerous flight and lose everything they consider important along the way, until at last they are empty enough to be filled with the ultimate knowledge.

This is heady stuff, and Posner guides his cast perfectly. Through subtle avian physicality, accentuated by the fluttering drapes of Olivera Gajic’s costume design, the ensemble imbue their birds with distinct personalities. As individuals they are filled with doubts and fears; when they physically and vocally transform into a flock, the effect is truly powerful. Choreographer Erika Chong Shuch does beautiful work creating that otherworldly quality.

The ensemble’s commitment is total and they all deserve praise – Katie duBuys, Britt Duff, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jay Dunn, Robert Barry Fleming, Patty Gallagher, Tara Giordano, Celeste Jones, Jens Rasmussen, Annapurna Sriram, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart. Above them in the rafters is Tom Teasley, weaving his always mesmerizing spell with live original music.

Part of the danger of producing a Brook-adapted play is that his theatrical style – spare set, strong physicality, group narrative – has been so imitated it’s in danger of losing its revolutionary quality. Posner avoids the traps by approaching the play with absolute sincerity. There’s an elegiac, elegant quiet to much of this production, punctuated by rousing moments of song, expressions of passionate vocality, and even humor. It all counterpoints well, and nothing is crammed in unnecessarily.

Witness the birds in the valley of love, where they elude each other, find each other, and disconnect again. Posner directs the pace to an achingly slow halt. This is a daring moment of potential alienation that puts the audience right in the center of both discomfort and beauty. He also chooses to accompany it with a completely different musical style than heard previously, heightening the surprise. As Sparrow, Britt Duff strums the ukelele and channels a poignant-voiced folk chanteuse, reminiscent of Jolie Holland perhaps. It’s an unexpected style to use, so delicate and intimate the air seems to still and time stops – just as it does for the birds themselves.

Many moments enrich this production. Just when you’re hypnotized by one, the mood suddenly shifts. A strutting peacock covers her deformed feet in shame. A man smears his face defiantly with his own blood, so as not to appear pale with fear. Moths flutter repeatedly into a flame. This isn’t an easy journey for a company or an audience to embark on. It’s beautiful yet challenging, and not everything will be clear.

But it doesn’t need to be.

By Jen Larson, for We Love DC

Rasmussen: Earnest and Innocent

“Nothing in the world is as amazing as something that is neither clear nor unclear,” marvels a member of director Aaron Posner’s dervish ensemble in The Conference of the Birds, now playing at the Folger Theatre. The production puts this claim to the test, leading audiences on a whirling, shape-shifting journey through the 12th century Sufi epic of the same name. And while mystical truth remains murky in this quest, the search is as rich and beautiful as a Persian tapestry.

The Conference of the Birds is an opulent mystery, inviting audiences on a journey far from traditional narrative and performance styles. The play is a joyful experiment in group storytelling, and a nimble balancing act between make-believe and mysticism. With its precise, expressive physical work and its entrancing design elements, this ensemble-based piece is an exciting complement to the Folger’s line-up of Shakespearean classics.

Adapted for the stage by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carrière in 1979, Farid Uddi Attar’s 4,500-line poem describes the journey undertaken by the birds of the world to seek their King, the mythical Simorgh—a beautiful and benevolent bird of Persian myth. To find him, the birds must travel over a vast stretch of deserts and valleys. In this journey laced with riddles and parables, the birds explore deep spiritual questions, reflecting the individual’s search for God. Spurred on in their quest by the Hoopoe (the wise and urgent Patty Gallagher), the birds are constantly tempted from their flight plan by human weaknesses including lust, greed, and a simple lack of motivation. (“I’ve a gold collar. My cage is all I need. I like my cage,” pleads the Parrot, played with fussy splendor by Robert Barry Fleming).

In its portrayal of a faith-based journey toward God, The Conference of the Birds expresses the core concepts of Sufism, the doctrines and practices of mystical Islam. Passed down within orders of adepts for centuries in Persia and across the Middle East, Sufism centers on the idea that only God exists—everything else in the universe is a shadow of the divine. Scholars are unsure about Attar’s exact relationship to Sufism, but its ideas are the focus of the poem.

The Hoopoe tells the birds that the Simorgh is “as radiant as the sun and he casts thousands of shadows on the earth. These shadows are birds.” In seeking the Simorgh, then, the birds are seeking a fundamental understanding of their place in the universe. Though these ideas come from a world distant to most DC theatergoers, they appear universal in the play’s simple language and imaginative staging.

Posner’s production is wary, however, to retreat fully behind his source material’s veil of colorful allegory. Rather than bright feathers, the actors wear pilgrims’ layered tunics and earth-tone shawls. Colored accent pieces identify a few species, but it is a challenge to tell the remaining birds apart. For instance, audience members unfamiliar with the Hoopoe have only Gallagher’s auburn bun as a subtle reference to the North African bird’s zebra-striped wings and orange crown (there’s a picture on the program cover). These more neutral outfits, however, keep focus on the story’s spiritual relevance for human audiences, and they keep the actors ready to leap into the show’s treasure chest of episodic fables.

With a somersault, and the addition of a cloak or beard, the birds become slaves, royalty, nomads, and thieves in a series of vignettes embellishing the central story of the birds’ search. In these sequences, the ensemble activates the creative power of Posner’s imaginative staging with evocative flair. Using only on their bodies and a few unpainted crates, the actors conjure harems and forests with ease.

Drawing on the favorite Sufi technique of paradox, these stories explore love’s power to transcend traditional hierarchies of power and probity. In one, a princess (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, who plays the Heron with equal long-legged grace) falls irresistibly in love with a slave (Jens Rasmussen, the earnest and innocent Magpie). With the help of a drug slipped into the unwitting slave’s wine, the princess is able to spend a night with him in secret. In the morning, the slave awakes and is driven mad by his blurred memories of ecstasy. Stories like these hum with esoteric truth, but their exact message is tantalizingly difficult to locate.

Granting no time for pondering, though, the birds flit back onstage. On land, the flock keeps in character through a series of cleverly avian twitches and hops. When flying, the birds soar toward their goal in a series of graceful flight sequences choreographed by Erika Chong Shuch.

Meghan Raham’s set elegantly echoes the nature of the birds’ journey: panels of tattered cloth hang like mendicant Sufi cloaks from the ceiling. Gaps in the threads show glimpses of an obscured truth, but never the full picture. Above the search, enthroned on a pile of drums, whistles, and other noisemakers sits Tom Teasley, king of noise, crowned in an orange fez. His expertise in a dizzying array of instruments turns the Folger’s Elizabeth stage into a portal to medieval Persia.

The actors also share in the music-making. The Nightingale (Annapurna Sriram, poignant romantic) turns a parable about love—it’s wasted on roses, which never smile— into a crooned folk tune. Britt Duff, the feisty Sparrow, strums another folk song on a ukelele that appears out of nowhere, as if by magic. In another number, the peacock (played with regal haughtiness by Jessica Frances Dukes) struts through the audience, boasting that she doesn’t need a King with colors like hers.

In their contemporaneity, the tunes graft uneasily onto the play’s otherwise timeless stem. Their folky, singer-songwriter qualities fit nicely with the actors’ organic storytelling but contrast sharply with Teasley’s evocative drumming. Sung and chanted nonsense words, meanwhile, as in the birds’ chattering complaints to the Hoopoe, nod to Peter Brook’s search for a universal language of performance, a quest which drove the original development of the play.

Much like the Hoopoe, Brook himself led a troupe of international actors (including a young Helen Mirren) on a search for their own enigmatic truth in 1971. Caravaning through the Sahara from Algiers to Nigeria and back, the group stopped at villages to roll out a large carpet and perform devised and improvised work. In these simple performances, the group strove to shed stale Western conventions and discover a more universal type of theatre. The Conference of the Birds, then still in development as primarily a wordless improvisation, served as a centerpiece of this experimental repertoire.

A total break with Western convention is difficult in a traditional space with ticket stubs and blackouts, but Posner does succeed in leading the audience into a shimmering dream-space where mirages materialize, tempt, and vanish. The ensemble’s skilled movement work lends the piece an organic simplicity well-suited to the story’s timeless subject matter, while Teasley’s music and Jennifer Schriever’s lights usher audiences into a world of opulent myth. Ultimately, any deep truth at the play’s heart is hard to pin down, but that seems to be the point.

The Conference of the Birds is a mystic journey away from the familiar—and as Posner’s eleven birds reveal with captivating grace – there is a splendid truth in simply seeking.


————-

The Conference of the Birds. Stage version by Jean-Clause Carrière and Peter Brook. Based on the poem by Farid Uddi Attar. Directed by Aaron Posner. Featuring Katie deBuys, Britt Duff, Jessica Frances Dukes, Jay Dunn, Robert Barry Fleming, Patty Gallagher, Tara Giordano, Celeste Jones, Jens Rasmussen, Annapurna Sriram, Tiffany Rachelle Stewart, and Tom Teasley. Original music: Tom Teasley. Set design: Meghan Raham, Costumes: Olivera Gajic, Lighting: Jennifer Schriever, Sound design: Elisheba Ittoop, and Choreographer: Erika Chong Shuch. Produced by Folger Theatre.





Reviewed by Robert Duffley for DC Theatre Scene.

Highly Recommended

Talented Cast is Always in Motion

Best known for fresh takes on Shakespeare, director Aaron Posner has expanded his repertoire. For his current offering at the Folger Theatre on Capitol Hill, he’s taken on “The Conference of the Birds,” an ensemble piece based on the 12th century Persian fable by Sufi poet Farid Uddi Attar. Told from the point of view of anthropomorphized feathered friends, it’s a compelling exploration of humanity’s quest for meaning.

At the urging of an unrelenting hoopoe, a varied flock of 10 birds are convinced to undertake an arduous journey to meet their ruler, the Simorgh. Understandably, they’re not all so eager to fly the coop: the parrot is content to remain in his gilded cage; the duck doesn’t want to leave water and the sparrow thinks she’s too weak for such a flight. But the hoopoe, played with wide-eyed intensity by Patty Gallagher, is very persuasive and off they all go.

The bird’s pilgrimage is long and hazardous: After crossing the desert (the anteroom of their trip), they must fly through seven valleys each of which offers its own lesson in love, understanding, annihilation, etc. Not all of the flock makes it to the Simorgh, but those who do are rewarded with an ample serving of universal truth.

Using words, music and movement, “Conference” takes its audience on a theatrical adventure. Posner’s inventive directing along with choreographer Erika Chong Shuch’s quirky, spasmodic moves brings the wordy work alive in exciting and unexpected ways. The talented 11-person cast (which includes Tara Giordano, Britt Duff and Jens Rasmussen who double duties as dance captain) is always in motion, transforming from birds to kings, slaves and hermits. Without ever leaving the stage floor, the actors subtly morph into a v-formation flock flying high overhead, seemingly covering great stretches of terrain on their winged journey.

Perched high atop the Folger’s stage, composer/musician Tom Teasley performs original music throughout the two-hour play using instruments from around the world. His exhilarating score — drawn from an eclectic variety of sound, rhythm and melody — adds significantly to the production.

The remainder of the design team is equally top notch. Meghan Raham’s timeless set of hanging burlap panels and twinkly amber lights is backed meaningfully by a wall of mirrors. And whether it’s the blinding light found in the valley of amazement or the darkness and fire in the telling of the moth to flame story, Jennifer Schriever’s lighting design is consistently clever and evocative.

While the cast mimics bird movements here and there, costume designer Olivera Gajic smartly resists the temptation to go avian. Instead, she outfits the birds in comfortable tops and drapey pants (and one or two skirts) in muted tones. Even the glorious peacock’s multi-colored wings are much quieter than what you’d expect from that feathered diva (memorably played by Jessica Frances Dukes).

Adapted for the stage by famed British director Peter Brooks and screenwriter/actor Jean-Claude Carriére, “Conference” premiered in 1971, touring Saharan African before playing to Western audiences. Its wisdom and beauty stimulates self-exploration. The work is “The Wizard of Oz”-ish in its suggestion that the search for fulfillment begins and ends within ourselves.

“Conference” is definitely a bold theatrical choice and Posner pulls it off with great imagination and style.

By Patrick Folliard for the Washington Blade

Folger Theatre soars with adaptation of Persian poem ‘Conference of the Birds’

Proving that Folger Theatre offers more than Shakespeare, “The Conference of the Birds” lights up the stage with its adaptation of the 12th century Persian poem by Farid ud-Din Attar.

The play is an epic adventure, following a flock of birds on their quest to find the Simorgh, a legendary bird that represents enlightenment. Each bird embodies a human flaw that hinders them in their journey. The birds are led by the Hoopoe (“wisest bird”) played by Patty Gallagher, who leads the cast admirably, giving just the right amount of wisdom and strength to her character.

Before the show begins, the sound of a pulsating drum rhythm is heard, creating a tribal atmosphere that is present throughout the play. The play progresses through a series of stories told by the Hoopoe and acted by the birds, who portray different characters for each story.

The first half of the play is each bird giving the Hoopoe a different reason why they cannot make the journey to see the Simorgh, and the Hoopoe responding with a story to convince them to come. After some of the flock has left, the remaining birds begin the flight. The second half of the play is comprised of the actual journey that spans decades and numerous trials, during which many of the birds do not survive.

“The Conference of the Birds” incorporates song and dance into the production seamlessly. Each song has a different flavor to it, ranging from an acoustic guitar indie number by the Sparrow (Britt Duff) to something reminiscent of 1960s soul sung by the Dove (Celeste Jones). Every actor possesses an impressive physicality, portraying the various types of birds with fluidity.

The set, designed by AU Assistant Professor Meghan Raham, is very elemental with hanging moss curtains and mirrored glass structures throughout the stage used to represent the numerous locations of the play.

Lighting designer Jennifer Schriever made an innovative use of the unique space of Folger Theatre by putting hanging lights over the audience that resemble a star lit night sky.

The costumes all had an earth-tone theme, along with layers that masked the human form and allowed the actors to portray bird like movements with seeming ease.

Though this play originates from 12th century Iran, modern audiences will still connect with its gorgeous visuals and classic story of a journey to self-discovery.

The Eagle Online

The Ensemble Creates Ravishing Stage Pictures

A Moveable Beast: In War Horse and The Conference of the Birds, inventive theater making brings animals to life.

Two quest stories, two examples of theatrical ingenuity and imagination, light Washington stages this week. Oh happy we!

In the warm wood confines of the intimate Folger Elizabethan Theatre, Aaron Posner and a lithe ensemble outline the mystical ruminations of a 12th-century Persian fable about how the world’s birds found their king, with the musician Tom Teasley weaving a world’s worth of musical threads together into a haunting soundscape and actor-dancers finding richly evocative physical expressions of flocks in flight and at rest. In the vast, plush expanse of the Kennedy Center Opera House, a children’s novel about war and peace and man and beast plays out on one of the nation’s larger stages, with folky songs accenting the action and astounding life-sized puppets standing in for the horses that give the story its substantial heart. Taken together, the two shows are a vivid reminder of what makes theater—when it’s fired by inspiration—such a singularly affecting art.

The Conference of the Birds is a Sufi mystic’s meditation on the search for the divine, but if that sounds passive, the show is anything but. Built in part around tall tales of cruel kings and lovestruck princesses, it’s narrated by a wise hoopoe (played with notes of wonder and sadness by Patty Gallagher), who gathers a multitude of birds—from the timid sparrow to the proud falcon to the vainglorious peacock—and marshals them for an urgent journey. The birds, it seems, are the only creatures in creation that don’t have a monarch, or so it’s been thought. The hoopoe knows better, though, and tells her winged brethren that beyond a mountain at the end of the world, there dwells an ur-bird called the Simorgh. Finding him won’t be easy, and only the bravest and truest will survive the journey, but still it must be undertaken.

Persuading them will be half the battle, of course, and much ofConference is devoted to inquiries into fear, self-interest, shallow desire, and the like. To each objection, the hoopoe responds with a parable, and eventually—this stretch does occasionally flag a trifle—the birds launch themselves across an endless desert and a series of seven valleys, each one a metaphor for a mental or spiritual state that must be explored before self-knowledge and true union with the divine can be hoped for.

Led by director Aaron Posner and choreographer Erika Chong Shuch—working, presumably, in tight coordination with Teasley, whose insinuating polyrhythms inform everything about the evening—the ensemble creates ravishing stage pictures: a sensuous duet for that passion-addled princess and the slave she’s mad for, wildly colorful swirls of avian chaos as the flock battles a windstorm, a sweeping gesture by an astrologer that dashes an entire cosmos to dust in an instant. The rich and suggestive costumes are by Olivera Gajic, the imposing set by Meghan Raham, and the whole is lit with surpassing grace by Jennifer Schriever.

Mysticism being, well, mystical, audiences may come away with as many questions as answers about what all this lovely tale-spinning means—but that’s kind of the point. Posner notes in the program that our ponderings about the piece will ultimately be as important as the experience in the theater, which is another way of putting what amounts to the hoopoe’s final benediction: “The way is open, but there is neither traveler nor guide.”

If The Conference of the Birds achieves the epic with theatrical sleight of hand, War Horse just goes big—really big. The program lists a cast of 34; the most important characters are two massive equine puppets, crafted of steel and fabric and wire, each requiring three actors to operate. There are villagers and soldiers and Nazis, and countrysides and battlefields projected on a stage-spanning scrap of sketchbook paper—a nod to a central story thread that involves a British officer and his drawings of the titular horse.

Said steed is Joey, raised from a foal by a Devonshire farmboy, Albert (Andrew Veenstra), and sold cruelly into the British cavalry by the boy’s drunken lout of a father. When word comes that the officer riding Joey has died in combat, Albert steals away to the front and enlists, determined to find his companion on the killing fields of World War I France. There, men with pistols and sabers for the first time confront machine guns and a horrifying new thing called a tank, and humans and horses alike die in throngs as a result.

The production—a touring version of the staging seen first in the U.S. at New York’s Lincoln Center—doesn’t stint on the carnage. But it’s at heart still a children’s story, and there’s a lyricism to it that makes the darkness easier to bear. Humor, too: Enjoy that recurring business about a particularly aggressive goose.

It’s often been noted that many of the human characters in War Horse are thinly drawn, but Veenstra makes a good case for Albert, as does Angela Reed for his much-put-upon mum. And it’s a particular pleasure to see John Milosich, a veteran of D.C.’s Synetic Theater, commanding the Opera House stage as the ballad singer whose melodies knit the show’s scenes together.

You see War Horse for the war horses, though, and they are majestic things indeed, cleverly designed and operated with minute attention to the details of how the real creature listens and breathes and moves. And feels—for make no mistake, this is a story about not just animal intelligence, but animal emotion, and it’s utterly convincing on both accounts.

By Trey Graham for Washington City Paper

Testament to the Potential of Theater

Brave is the director who tries to take on Peter Brook. “The horror of someone trying to reproduce what I once did appalls me,” said the legendary British director last year, at the age of 85. But in The Conference of the Birds, currently playing at the Folger Theatre, director Aaron Posner doesn’t ape Brook so much as pay homage to him, and the result is a gorgeous, whirling, harmonious spectacle.

A 12th-century epic fable about a group of birds who set out on a quest for spiritual enlightenment (representing the mystical intentions of Sufism), Conference was adapted for the stage by Brook and Jane-Claude Carrière in 1979. The pair took the play to Africa, where its cast—including a young Helen Mirren—hoped to reinvent theater by presenting the show to audiences who had never seen it and had no preconceptions of what it should be. (They also later performed it in New York and Paris.) Posner has no such luck. Staged in the Folger’s immaculately historic surroundings, this Conference is less about breaking traditions (even if it’s a shift in style from the Folger’s usual programming) and more about having fun with the show and the opportunities it presents for movement and physicality.

Leading the birds on their journey to find the Simorgh, who they hope will represent transcendence, is the Hoopoe (Patty Gallagher), a composed and gravely intent cult leader of sorts who pulls the group out of their comfortable but meaningless lives. “You think you have the almond, but all you have is the shell,” she tells the parrot, comfortable in his cage. And to the peacock, strutting in his coat of many colors: “Your kingdom is hardly a drop in the ocean, so why not have the ocean?”

If this kind of New Agey mystical speak offends you, or feels tired in our era of bikram yoga and Deepak Chopra, it’s the least important part of the production. The story is really just an excuse for the actors to show off their skills, from timid sparrow Britt Duff’s gift with a ukelele to Celeste Jones (the Dove) and Jessica Frances Dukes’s (the Peacock) phenomenal singing voices. The cast sing one number with the resounding spirit of a church revival, and then shift tone completely toward a mesmerizing indie-tinged ballad when the Nightingale (Annapurna Sriram) begins her song.

Accompanying his own original compositions is Helen Hayes Award winner Tom Teasley, who sits, as usual, above the stage in his own bird’s nest of sorts and provides a cornucopia of different sound effects. His presence during the show is less prominent than in Constellation Theatre’s 2011 production of The Green Bird, during which he beatboxed, sawed, tapped, and plucked his way through the play as one of its most integral components, but the subtleties of his work in Conference are almost more rewarding. This is, above all, an ensemble piece, with each different element layered over another to create an absorbing whole.


Decked out in All Saints-like hipster faux-rags by costume designer Olivera Gajic, and ducking their way in and out of a burlap-and-mirrors set by Meghan Raham, the actors sometimes look for all the world like post-apocalyptic survivors playing an elaborate game of hide-and-seek. But the minimally intrusive design elements allow the storytelling to shine, which it does through Posner’s creative, often funny direction and Erika Chong Shuch’s choreography. The Duck (Katie deBuys) wags her legs, the Magpie (Jens Rasmussen) cocks his head, and the Heron (Tiffany Rachelle Stewart) stands proudly and elegantly aloof from the rest. When the birds fly together, through dark valleys and over long distances, there’s no suspension of disbelief necessary to see them as a flock of ascending creatures in flight.

Does the production reveal new spiritual truths or shine a light on the veiled mysteries of the human soul? Not really. But it’s a moving, effective, and entertaining testament to the potential of theater, which was presumably Posner’s intention all along.






by Sophie Gilbert for the Washingtonian

Broadway World: Conference of the Birds is Mesmerizing

With strong direction by Aaron Posner, an eleven member cast and one extraordinary percussionist excel with presenting The Conference of the Birds in such a way that fuses Western and Eastern music and dance influences together to create a spell-binding theatrical event.  This Folger Theatre mainstage production, based on a great work of Sufi literature, allows audience members to ponder large existential questions (largely of the esoteric nature), while being thoroughly entertaining.    The balance that is achieved is remarkable even if some of the physical humor is a bit too overdone for my taste.

Based on the Persian poem that Farid Uddi Attar wrote nearly 1000 years ago, Jean-Claude Carriére and Peter Brook’s allegorical play explores how a group birds endures a difficult journey to find its King (called Simorgh) under the leadership of an extremely dedicated Hoopoe (an effectively authoritarian Patty Gallagher).  As the birds cross diverse terrain, they question not only whether they will make the journey, but also whether the journey will be ‘worth it’ in the end.   They push their physical, emotional, and spiritual limits as those who do finish the journey discover themselves and their own inner strength.

Backed with original music composed and performed by the masterful and award-winning Tom Teasley (who is reason enough to see this show),eleven actors impressively embody our avian friends on a journey without nary a feather on their costumes (cleverly designed by Olivera Gajic).  All are equally skillful with acting/storytelling, physical movement, and singing although several of them have standout moments even in this overwhelmingly ensemble piece.  Britt Duff is endearing as the shy sparrow and has a nice moment in Act II, which shows off her folksy musical talents.   Jessica Frances Dukes uses her strong stage presence to her distinct advantage as she takes on the seemingly self-confident peacock.  With quick, deliberate, and precise physical movement and intense line delivery she exudes power.  When Tiffany Rachelle Stewart is the focus of the scene, whether embodying a heron or a lover, it’s impossible to keep your eyes off her.  Her striking presence, coupled with nuanced acting even in the ensemble-heavy scenes, makes her one to watch.   She’s always in character.

Production-wise, this is one of the strongest I’ve seen at Folger.  Meghan Raham’s scenic design, largely comprised of burlap tapestries and mirrors, highlights the mystical nature of this piece and further illuminates the theme of self-discovery.  Jennifer Schriever innovatively uses an impressive array of light bulbs in her lighting design, which further adds to the ambiance.  The reality presented on stage is mythical and the subtle yet interesting lighting and sound elements (Tom Teasley, Elisheba Ittoop) capture it perfectly.  Erika Chong Shuch’s modern choreography is most effective in scenes where the birds are flying together to their destination and is skillfully executed by all of the actors.  

Strong acting and equally impressive presentation elements make this production one that I’d recommend for the discerning theatregoer. 

By Jennifer Perry for BroadwayWorld.com

WaPo: Fogler's 'Conference of the Birds' Stunningly Creative

The magic that director Aaron Posner creates onstage in “The Conference of the Birds” began not in rehearsal but in auditions. That’s where the director, who gained fame locally with his 2008 magic-show-style “Macbeth,” must have posed questions like, “Can you do a split?” “How are your flatulent noises?” and, “Any chance you can strum the ukulele and sing like Ingrid Michaelson?”

How else could he have ended up with this talented cast of athletic actor-dancer-vocalists?

“Birds,” which opened Sunday, is a beautiful mash-up of music, physical theater, pop culture allusions and ancient Persian poetry. It is not, in its own right, a profoundly memorable play. But it is a stunningly creative example of how to adapt an Eastern epic for a contemporary Western stage, in league with Mary Zimmerman’s imaginative classics such as “Metamorphoses” and “The Odyssey.” The “Birds” script — performed at the Folger with a few tweaks — is a 1979 effort by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere, as derived from Farid Uddi Attar’s 12th-century poem. Brook, one of Europe’s most influential directors, has long been fascinated by Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam that emphasizes the unity of God and nature. “The Conference of the Birds” follows a flock in search of the mythical king called the Simorgh. Along the way, they confront hermits and dervishes.

Posner’s conceptual genius starts with the titular conference, and the fact that there’s not a feather in sight. Olivera Gajic has dressed the actors a bit like Takoma Park hippies, in layers of earth-toned scarves and Tencel tunics. Each actor plays at least one bird throughout the show — a parrot, partridge and falcon predominate. Yet the leader of Brook’s peripatetic flock is not a powerful raptor but a hoopoe, a Eurasian cousin of the kingfisher.

Patty Gallagher leads the cast as the hoopoe, who is part guru, part narrator, part onstage yoga instructor. Loops of strawberry blond hair echo the orange crest of her ornithological character, and while the effort is worth it, the body language is even more fascinating than the complicated coiffure. No funky-chicken elbow moves here. The birds move their necks and shoulders in minuscule twitches and dart their eyes as if silently chirping.When they fly, the performers lift and support each other as well as any modern dance company. And then there are the breakout moments when each species gets into pop culture character. Peacock Jessica Frances Dukes belts soulfully as she struts down the Folger’s center aisle displaying her coat of 10,000 colors. As the nightingale, Annapurna Sriram sings of sorrows and roses and self-reflection like a public-radio indie-pop star. She later passes the ukulele on to Britt Duff, the sparrow, who mourns her frailty and warbles like Jolie Holland.

Underscoring all this singing and the spoken dialogue is Washington musician Tom Teasley, who won a Helen Hayes Award for his performance last year in Constellation Theatre’s “The Ramayana.” Now promoted to the Folger’s balcony, he plays a mix of 15 traditional and contemporary instruments, ranging from the kamancheh to the mouth organ. The Folger is known for integrating live music into shows, with mixed success, but what’s noticeable here is that Teasley is so unnoticeable, producing just the right percussive and string-instrument sounds to complement the action.

Mystery and self-discovery are the main themes here, which lend themselves well to theatrical meanderings but not conclusive endings. The closing chant, after the birds find the Simorgh and burlap curtains are pulled back to reveal a dazzling mirror, seems more like self-help cheerleading than Sufism. Something about the sun, the mirror, and seeing your soul in your body. The Simorgh told the birds these things, the hoopoe tells us, without using words. In a show worth seeing for its movement, music and imagery, a little kooky dialogue should be forgotten, like a swirl of dust in the desert.

By Rebecca Ritzel, of the Washington Post

Members of the Ensemble Cast do it all... in Perfect Harmony

Whatever its deeper meanings, Folger Theatre’s The Conference of the Birds, in a stage version by Peter Brook and Jean-Claude Carriere and directed by Aaron Posner, is a downright brilliant piece of theater. The key words are intricacy and precision.The main elements: Erika Chong Shuch’s choreography for the ensemble cast, involving a significant degree of coordinated group movement, unison breathing, hand gestures, and occasional bits of tumbling; Jennifer Schriever’s spectacularly detailed and varied lighting design; Tom Teasley’s music on multiple instruments. Each movement by the ensemble is perfectly, instantaneously timed with corresponding light cues and individual notes in Teasley’s music. The evening is one of virtuosic execution of a carefully conceived plan for presenting the story.

The story, based on a 12th century Sufi poem written by Farid Uddi Attar, is a mythic quest, deep in Joseph Campbell territory. Led by the Hoopoe (Patty Gallagher), the 10-strong ensemble, representing all the other birds, debate how to deal with their uncertainties and dissatisfactions by seeking their true king, Simorgh. The “conference” of the title takes place in the first act. The Hoopoe tries to persuade the other birds to begin the quest. Many of the other birds demur. The Parrot (Robert Barry Fleming) is comfortable in his cage; the Duck (Katie deBuys) is reluctant to leave the comfortable water in her pond; the Falcon (Jay Dunn) wishes to remain with his king; the Sparrow (Britt Duff) is too timid to take a dangerous journey, etc. The Hoopoe responds primarily by telling stories. To the Falcon, for example, she recounts a series of stories in which kings arbitrarily kill their devotees. Ultimately the Hoopoe – the narrator as well as the leader of the flock – succeeds in persuading the others to leave their fears and comforts behind and undertake the journey.

As befits a mythic quest, the journey is long and arduous, involving a wide desert and seven valleys (representing various emotional and existential states — quest, love, unity, astonishment, etc.) through which the birds must pass, each with its own challenges and its own meanings to decipher. Many fall short: the 30 that succeed learn that Simorgh is not a separate being (no Wizard at the end of these birds’ Yellow Brick Road), but within themselves (indeed, “Simorgh” is a Persian pun for “30 birds”). As one commentator put it, “By annihilating themselves gloriously in the [Simorgh] they find themselves in joy, learn the secrets, and receive immortality. So long as you do not realize your nothingness and do not renounce your self-pride, vanity, and self-love, you will not reach the heights of immortality. Attar concluded the epilog with the admonition that if you wish to find the ocean of your soul, then die to all your old life and then keep silent.”

In keeping with the superb stagecraft of the production, the burlap curtains that are a key part of Meghan Rahm’s set design part at the play’s conclusion to reveal a mirror in which the birds see themselves. Given the allegorical nature of the work – these are human emotions and a human spiritual quest we are dealing with, after all — Olivera Gajic’s costume design makes no attempt to make the cast look like birds. The subdued palate emphasizing greys, browns, and greens never calls attention to itself (save one disco queen-like costume for a peacock) and perfectly complements the movement and lighting of the production.

The members of the ensemble cast do it all – moves, speaks clearly and in character, sings on some occasions – and most of all do it in perfect harmony with one another.Regardless of how much Sufi mysticism of a millennium ago may or may not resonate with a Washington audience of today, the presentation of Attar’s story at the Folger can only inspire admiration.

by Rob Ashby for Showbiz Radio 

Queens Odyssey: The Internationalists’ Which Direction Home?

On a warm day in June, in an overheated rehearsal studio in Bushwick, peppered with sawdust on the floor and punctuated by garage door openings and exitings, an experiment in theater is underway. Stage left sit Athena, Poseidon, and Zeus with a MacBook on their desk, calling the shots for the now immortal mortals, Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus, and other beings from a tale that has been passed down through the millennia. The rehearsal proceeds as many others in this early stage: at times the crew, including director Jake Witlen, break into a chorus of, “ring, ring, ring, ring,” providing the necessary telephone cue; lines are forgotten and remembered; a song is sung with sparing accompaniment; at its conclusion a conversation of further scoring is had. While the story of The Odyssey is re-made, re-shaped and re-created in this room, the real odyssey for these artists and for artists the world over will begin in July. Today’s piece will then become but one of a slew of odysseys making up Which Direction Home?, a theatrical event conceived and created by The Internationalists, a collective of theater directors from around the world.

In Which Direction Home?, eight of the member-directors have created new shows which will be brought from six different countries and are, according to their website, “inspired (more or less) by Homer’s epic poem.” The shows are split into two different programs, presented on alternate evenings. There will also be one marathon performance in which the audience can view both programs in a single day. The individual pieces easily fall into the over-used category of “experimental,” or, as producer Cathy Bencivenga says, “I hesitate to call them all plays. Many of them are performances.” A sampling: from Germany, Dina Keller is bringing an event that will begin every evening by inviting the audience to sit with cast members, enjoy food and drink, and enter into discussion about “foreignness” and a journey, setting the evenings to sail. Witlen’s production has a text that was “wiki”-ed by 10 playwrights from around the world. Doug Howe, in from Paris, invited six playwrights from all over the world to create a piece based on the theme of home—who, where, and what is it? Sama Ky Balson, from Australia, has created a piece of documentary-theater, taking the stories of boys from around the world who grew up without fathers as a way to prism into the story of Telemachus, Odysseus’ son. And one evening will feature an environmental theatrical event, created by Romanian director Ana Margineanu, in which a single audience member at a time will be led to five different site-specific locations, blindfolded, to experience theater (theatron: seeing-space) sans the thea part. But the real experiment underpinning all of these experimental theaters is The Internationalists.

The Internationalists was founded by a group of directors who met during The Lincoln Center Theater’s Directors lab in the summer of 2007. While living and creating in different places on the globe, the directors came together, becoming unified with the mission “to create a more open, sustainable, and interactive global theatrical community.” Over the years the members of the collective have found ways to collaborate across borders. They’ve traveled to collaborate on projects, experimented with producing work in two locations simultaneously, and hosted artists from disciplines ranging from Burmese Butoh dancers to commedia dell’arte and site-specific work. Annual events include “Around the World in 24-hours”: a marathon, 24-hours of theater with live performances from different artists in New York and simulcast performances skyped in from locations around the world. The collective also hosts a New Year’s Eve party, “New Year’s Eve(ry) hour” with the ringing in tracked across the globe. And they are one of the few organizations in the city that hosts “World Theatre Day.” (There is one, it’s March 27.) Artists interested in global theater congregate and hear the World Theatre Day Message read aloud in various languages by member-artists around the world. While all of these events have various obstacles to overcome—language and cultural barriers, systemic differences, technological hurdles—Which Direction Home? is The Internationalists’ most ambitious project yet.

The event is a culmination of a year-long residency that the collective is concluding at the La Guardia Performing Arts Center in Queens. “It’s one show’s worth of residency over eight people,” is how Bencivenga sees it. The difficulties of producing any single production are here multiplied by a factor of eight. Add to this the incorporation of four productions that have been in development in other countries over the past year. Their creators are arriving a month before the event to add their works to those created by the artists who are based in New York. In weaving these pieces together, the “designers have been like dramaturgs,” says Witlen. Lighting designer Stephen Arnold adds, “Creating a lighting language that can serve all the widely spread ideas has been a fun challenge.” 

This challenge has been necessary in order to achieve the most important goal of the event: learning about each others’ work. The members will get to experience the pieces as a whole, but even more importantly, they will get the rare opportunity to watch each other work. In order to best achieve this, each of the directors was given very little in terms of guidance. While The Odyssey is a story that is well known in the Western world, these pieces are, as Howe explains, “Not based on a reinterpretation of The Odyssey but truly inspired by it.” The result, he says, was that, “everyone latched on to the things that were interesting to them.”  The diversity of pieces created due to this inspirational freedom shows the various backgrounds that each of the artists are coming from, the way this shapes their view of the world, their art, how they create their art and what is important to them in their art. Over the next month the artists will be able to communicate about their work and learn from each other in a way that technology simply doesn’t allow. As Howe explains, “Having everyone in New York gives the opportunity to be in the same room to create.” 

One of the other theatrical experiences audiences and artists will be able to have will be something that the group is calling “Instant Theatre.” In this experiment the directors will collectively create pieces of theater with participating audience members before each show. This poses the question, Witlen and many others may ask, “Can two directors work at the same time? Can six?”  

“Hopefully, by the end of this,” says Howe, “we have the ability to define the questions,” — questions that Witlen describes as “never-ending. They continue to grow and get deeper and more intimate.” 

The most worthwhile experiments start out with questions. Expect The Internationalists to continue to ask questions of the international arts community, expanding and shaping its possibilities well into the future. In the near-future a world of theater will be in Queens and for those who make The Odyssey Howe declares: “July is Odyssey month. A kumbaya of theater.”