Flux Sunday, July 6th
(Photo: Allison Bolah. Pictured: Daren Taylor, David Douglass Smith, David Ian Lee, Isaiah Tanenbaum, Amy Fitts)THE HAPPY RETURN OF FLUX SUNDAYS!
Well, after a long break courtesy of our production of Midsummer, Flux returned to our weekly workshop process, Flux Sundays. And it was good to be back! For those of us who worked on Midsummer directly, it was the perfect cure for the post play blues. And for those who didn’t, it was good to jump back into our three hour fix. Autumn Horne brought her photographer friend, Allison Bolah, and she took photos of our work for a fascinating project she and Autumn are working on about the way we tell stories. And some excellent stories were told!
THE BEST OF THIS KIND ARE BUT SHADOWS
This Sunday marked the Flux playwriting debut of Aaron Michael Zook, our most excellent Theseus. He brought the first scene from a play called We Are Burning, featuring Prometheus, a Greek Chorus, young lovers, and the promise of wild fire. This first scene was not only promisingly theatrical, but his Prometheus has a fascinating way of sucking his audience in without revealing much. And Amy Fitts and Daren Taylor made a lovely Will and Lucy.
THE DOGS OF THIS KIND ARE BUT SHOWS
David Ian Lee’s Dog Show continued with a rewrite of the Eddie/Candice/Frank scene, where the power couple probes the morality of their seemingly powerless guest (Eddie). We read the rewrite before pressing into the treacherous eponymous scene where Eddie and Candice go to the dog show. Daren played Eddie and Autumn, a fierce Candice, as director Rob Ackerman brought out into the light all the twisted little subtle tricks these two play.
(Photo: Allison Bolah. Pictured: Rob Ackerman)“Were you ever instructed by a wise and eloquent man? Remember then, were not the words that made your blood run cold, that brought the blood to your cheeks, that made you tremble or delighted you,—did they not sound to you as old as yourself? Was it not truth that you knew before, or do you ever expect to be moved from the pulpit or from man by anything but plain truth. Never. It is God in you that responds to God without, or affirms his own words trembling on the lips of another.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
But Rob didn’t just direct this Sunday…he also brought the first scene of a VERY exciting new play about a descendant of Ralph Waldo Emerson who may or may not be possessed by his famous ancestor. Call Me Waldo features some working class guys rattled when one of their own suddenly starts uttering Ralph’s raptures. Lee, played by Isaiah Tanenbaum in one of his finest Flux performances, only wants to keep his life together, and wants none of the attention his wife (Gretchen Poulos) and co-worker Gus (David Douglas Smith) start pouring on him. This was a really exciting first scene (well directed by Brian Pracht) funny and heartfelt, and we are all excited to see what comes next.
THE FITTS OF THIS DAVID ARE BUT CANDICE
(OK, I’m running out of steam with these headers). We then looked at my now favorite scene from Johnna Adam’s Oneida, Servants of Motion. Oneida is set in an historical utopian community run by the charismatic founder John Humphrey Noyes. Noyes’ creates a communistic heaven on earth, where every resource is shared and a complex marriage is practiced. Men and women take partners as they choose (often prompted by Noyes’ eugenics), with the men practicing a male continence taught to them as pubescent boys by woman past child-bearing age. But wait, don’t move to this paradise just yet! This scene picks up as Tirzah, denied her love for music and Edward because favoritism doesn’t belong in Heaven, is playing the piano on the body of her uncle/lover Noyes in her sleep. Pregnant with a child she is determined to name Haydn after the music she and Edward were playing when they fell too much in love, Noyes realizes he must show Tirzah the harsh truth of her now exiled lover Edward if her heart will ever belong to the community again. Anne, the head of the Criticism community and the only non-direct relative of Noyes to rise to power, produces a series of letters from Edward in the outside world where he denounces his love for Tirzah and their child. David played Noyes, Candice Holdorf a gentle and unsettling Anne, and Amy Fitts a haunted but still passionate Tirzah in this lovely scene.
THE BEST OF THE BODIES ARE BUT OTHERS
We ended with a rewrite from our Fringe play, Other Bodies, with Heather Cohn getting white knuckle performances from Aaron as Terry and Jane as Time.
It was good, very good, to be back.
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