Flux Sunday, March 23rd

ON BIRDS AND BUNNIES
Our Flux workshop on Sunday the 23rd, aka ‘Easter’, was a blissfully smaller turnout of 14 people – about 12 less than our recent average – and I welcomed the intimate crowd.

ONEIDA, OR ISAIAH GOES SLEDDING
We continued through Johnna Adams’ wonderful play about the utopian community in mid-1800’s New York, Oneida, or Servants of Motion. Kate Marks directed three short scenes – in the first, founder Noyes and his favorite lover Tirzah discuss the unusual communal marriage structure even as Noyes tries to exempt her from it and claim her all for himself. In the second, Mary, she of last week’s stillborn child, teaches her students the value of punctuality by burning a late girl’s doll. In the third, the middle-aged Harriet teaches teen-age Pip the thrill and difficulty of sex with male continence, likening it to sledding. In all three scenes, the surprise of human need breaks through the unusual social structures, dropping hints of how this community may fall apart. Very strong performances were given by all: Ken Glickfeld and Katie Hartke in the first; Candice Holdorf and Kelly O’Donnell in the second, and Isaiah Tanenbaum and Kelly again in the third.

BIRD HOUSE, OR HEIDI’S PLAYHOUSE
Heidi Handelsman directed the latest scene in Kate’s Bird House to delightful affect, with a comically tyrannical Myra-on-stilts by Charlotte Graham; a spirited Syl by Johnna; and a manically depressed and besieged Louisy by Heather Cohn. This was the closest we’ve come to bottling the elusive genii of Kate’s play, and it was a basket full of perfect Peeps.

EGEUS, OR GUS GOES VERSING
My contribution to our upcoming Imagination Compact (more info soon) was our last play of the day, and was directed with great patience by Jeremy Basescu. I was literally writing as they were rehearsing, and I gave him two new pages every twenty minutes until this short play was done. It features Egeus and Demetrius from Midsummer, captured by Amazons after fighting alongside Theseus; and as they reminisce about what they left behind, a bond develops between them that puts the first scene of the play in an unusual light. After the fun I had writing in verse for Gideon’s (now renamed) Blueprint project, I was very happy to return to all the little pleasure blank verse can give. David Douglas Smith and Brian Pracht did a great job steering the little ship of intention on this sea of words.

Sunday, bunny Sunday.