Multiple dimensions

Editorial
I’m a huge nerd. I like science fiction, video games, and my brain has a knack for disassembling complex plot lines and putting them back together. Mission Impossible made sense to me. Memento was a snap. It’s this training in my youth that prepared me to completely appreciate Walking Shadow’s Transdimensional Couriers Union this year. I believe that the desire to put events in chronological order is not a desire exclusive to the nerd population; it’s a basic human desire. We live in a world where cause precedes effect. That’s how we think. That’s what we’re used to in our day-to-day lives. It’s comfortable. It’s home. That being the case, it takes a special thinker to be able to imagine a world where these rules don’t necessarily apply. It takes an even more uncommon talent to be able to craft a narrative that thrives on that exploration—and make it an engaging and accessible piece of theater. TDCU author John Heimbuch is completely at home here. The Transdimensional Couriers Union opens with a young couple getting ready for work. When he leaves, she gets a strange call from someone she doesn't know. Then the young man re-enters, in different clothes, claiming he's from the future. He gets her to hide in a closet just moments before she herself re-enters--from the future to kill Future Him. This simple yet mind-blowing scene sets off a whirlpool of time-jumping and future/past/present versions of people that come and go and swirl around as if this play had 18 actors instead of just six actors. (Technically, the production was nearly flawless with scene and costume changes easing the audience through this spinning story.)

Disassembling greatness

A truly great piece of art must be accessible, engaging, and timeless. If your audience can't identify with your work, or doesn't understand it, you may have a brilliant piece but it will not get the attention it otherwise might. You get work that’s ahead of its time: You’re Beethoven. You’re Devo. If your work is interesting but not engaging, people won't talk about it on the ride home or at work the next day. The difference is in the degree to which a viewer emotionally invests with your work. If they don’t connect with your characters or the spirit of your work, they won't think about it for days and weeks to come, and quite possibly may not even stay through the whole thing. Finally, even if your work completely and magically defines a moment in time, it may be revered, but no one will come back to it years from now and mine it for deeper meaning. You get Garden State and not Casablanca. Heimbuch's script initially appears difficult: How do you sift through the briar patch of timelines weaving in and around the characters? This particular play will live or die on the ease by which an audience can connect and stay with these characters. Heimbuch understands this and doesn’t jump around in time too early. We spend the first third of the play getting to know these characters: Peter Logan, an everyman trying to do the right thing; Sophie Evenson, his girlfriend and the fish out of water; Renee Goddard, Peter’s partner (and maybe more). Heimbuch gives us these archetypes not to pander to us, nor to lead us by the nose through his story. He establishes these characters solidly in the beginning, so he can spend the majority of the rest of the script slowly turning them over and over until we're not sure who we should cheering. The script isn't just about a playwright showing how clever he can be, however; it touches on themes of responsibility, loyalty, love, hope and redemption. Ultimately, the characters are human, their flaws real, and their choices understandable. It takes almost no effort to identify with these people and walk away from the performance with a wide buffet of conversation topics.

Time for empathy

It is this level of accessibility that leads directly to the engagement and empathy we feel for these characters. Within the first 15 minutes of the play we're almost completely certain who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. The first act sets up a fairly standard love triangle, a classic out-for-revenge antagonist, and a cool-as-ice arch-villain—until the audience learns that these aren’t just two-dimensional people we’re watching. Much like the plot of the show, the characters within it take on nearly four dimensions. Each is meticulously crafted, perfectly seasoned with faults and virtues that the very last scene, which is somewhat of a cliffhanger/epilogue, has us almost regretting we cheered for the "hero." The woman we are led to believe has nothing but hatred and malice for our protagonist the entire show is given a send-off which makes us feel happy for her, wishing her the best. When you can walk away from a story and feel compassion and regret for the fall of the villain, you've got a rare piece of fiction. As to my third criteria—whether or not this script stands the test of time—who knows? Heimbuch uses very specific years to mark the text. As we get closer and closer to that time, will we find that audiences and theater companies will look at this play as a "What did people in the 21st century think our lives would be like" experiment, or will it be looked at as a quaint work of a naive age (as many might think when watching, say, Kubrick's 2001? What I believe is certain is that the story being told here is itself timeless—a perfectly welded combination of science fiction and erudite prognostication. I believe that we'll find this play done in theater companies for decades to come.
Headshot of Nicholas  Leeman
Nicholas Leeman
Nicholas Leeman is an actor in Minneapolis, originally from Iowa. He appreciates people who don't hold that against him.