Best of 2010-2011: Red Resurrected

Editorial
One of the shows that drew me into theater is a piece I saw outdoors in India called In Search of A Dark God, by performers from Kerala, a state in the Southern part of India in a language I did not understand. This was a traveling troupe that had come to where I lived in Madras. Until then, I was used to British and American plays in English, and traditional theater and dance drama—both forms that I loved but that were removed from my lived experience. I was sixteen and this was the first time I had seen something from my own culture that spoke to me, that reached across and touched me in a visceral way, that was modern and homegrown and was based in the Indian context; it broke the fourth wall and was gloriously non-linear, used indigenous form and content but was based in my own culture, like the myths I grew up with. The performance took place outdoors and lights were hung from trees and emerged magically through leaves and branches, creating an eerie design on the playing area. The only set piece was a bridge across some stones. A strip of wood that the actors had found nearby represented the bridge. Everything in the performance—human beings, wind, sea, location—was provided by six actors. The audience had to imagine the water that the bridge spanned as the actors moved across it. All the actors were dressed in simple white costumes, yet as they walked silently across the playing area, the audience was enthralled. Because I could barely understand the language spoken by the actors, a lot was left to my imagination. For me, there was an almost indefinable air of magic that day. Red Resurrected directed by Isabel Nelson, created by Isabel and her ensemble, and performed at the 2011 Fringe Festival in the Lab Theater, took me right back to my roots in theater—to my experience of that particular performance and my own subsequent foray into street theater in Chennai, where we would create work as an ensemble and take it to the streets and perform anywhere there was a crowd. We often created work in our own native language, Tamil, and also created work with a multilingual group of artists so we simply used our bodies to tell our stories. Red Resurrected did what good theater does—language, movement, form and content all served the purpose of telling a story with enormous range and depth with remarkable simplicity. It put me in touch with the true magic of theater—bodies in space, movement, gestures, songs, sounds created by the actors and especially silences that allow the script to breathe, producing a work of art that allows us as audience members to watch and imagine, rather than be led! (I love silences and pauses—my theater experience in the West has led me to believe that a lot of directors hate it here.) In the cavernous space of the Lab Theater, the production allowed us to imagine everything—the geography of the mountain village and forest that Red Resurrected took place in unfolded in front of us. Apart from playing human beings, the ensemble also carefully crafted multiple images throughout the performance. They transformed themselves into trees, forest, wolves, birds, fire and even a leaky faucet. So the story is brought to life by the ensemble through movement, language, vocalizations, sounds of birds, water, wolves, the crackling of fire and the drip-dripping of that faucet (which was one of my favorite sounds). The beginning of the play sets a tone of the deep mystery of the story “Outside a town called Primrose there’s a path that runs westward into these woods. Mostly it’s the woodsmen that use it, but every so often a girl might find her path into the darkness, try to find her way.” Set in the Appalachian mountains, the play is revisionist myth making of the best kind. It is simple, subversive and transformational. Poetically written and performed, it is a feminist reworking of the story of Red Riding Hood and the wolf and is also influenced by the myths of Persephone and Demeter. Red (played by Adelin Phillips) has no parents and is raised by members of a little village community by the woods. She is told that the woods are a dangerous place to go to but this only serves to whet her curiosity. The ensemble plays all the members of the community, from the Cooper family with Mrs. Cooper (Allison Witham), the village carpenter Mr. Cooper (Derek Miller) and their son Tommy (Willie Gambucci) to the eccentric Mrs. Quinn (Heather Bunch) and kind Mr. Oak (Diogo Lopes). The tale is told by a narrator (Anna Reichert) who also transforms into a woman who has been banished to the woods. As Red grows up, her insatiable curiosity leads her into the woods again and again until an encounter with Mr. Cooper in the woods and the unforgiving reaction from the villagers sends her seeking the uncharted and challenging terrain of the woods forever. She finds the long banished woman there who gives her shelter, imparts knowledge of how to heal and teaches Red about life. As the woman, La Loba, says after a group of wolves attacks a deer in the woods (again, played brilliantly by the ensemble), “You can’t stop wolves from being wolves, Red. There’s darkness in this world no matter where you go. Some things are past saving.” This is a poignant moment, and we are left questioning who the real wolves are in this piece. Then, one of my favorite moments from the piece occurs when Red heals a wounded wolf (played with winning vulnerability and commitment by Derek Miller). And when Red returns to the village, everyone with the exception of Mrs. Quinn turns their back on her. Again one of those luminous moments of connection occurs when Mrs. Quinn says to Red, “I can’t know for sure what happened out there, but I’ve seen enough in this lifetime to guess. I’m just trying to do right by you. Always was. Just trying to help you find your way.” And the final image of the play we are left with is that Red has found the path home. As La Loba narrates, “Outside a town called Primrose there’s a path that runs westward into the forest. Mostly only woodsmen that use it, but every so often a woman chooses her path into the wilderness, into the rich soil and thick forests and mountains beyond mountains beyond mountains. And whether she returns, or whether she stays in that wild unknown, she has a home, healing things that are broken, and singing with a full voice towards the horizon.” Red has come full circle again. Another protagonist in this production is the light – the cavernous Lab space was lit by lighting designer Karin Olson effectively to create the ambience of the village and the woods. Nelson used every inch of the space effectively to tell the story. And even though the subject matter is intense—it is a coming of age story that addresses how women pay the price if they transgress social norms—it is told with a lightness and play that is entirely due to the way the language of the play and story unfolds. In the beginning, I thought that Tommy Cooper and Red would find love, however, I discovered to my delight that the story does not deal with the question of love at all—instead, it is about Red losing her community and what she considers her family, and eventually finding herself and who she is as a woman. It is about a young woman’s deep dissatisfaction with the world as it appears to her even though it might appear rich and full to the audience. And, it is about celebrating the rich friendship that can happen between women. Transgression is the key to transformation and it allows both the woman of the woods and Red to travel beyond the limitations of what is considered conventional. What this piece does well is allow us as audience members to look at this world through Red’s eyes, to look at the world of the play and the fable of Red Riding Hood from a different angle and to question our own constructed value systems and ideas. The message is pretty direct. It exposes the discriminatory practices of the myths and fables we grow up with. And most of all, through Isabel Nelson’s skillful script and direction and the evocative and engaging ensemble, the performances serve to jumpstart that most important ingredient of all good theater—the imagination of the audiences who came to see this performance.
Headshot of Meena Natarajan
Meena Natarajan
Meena Natarajan is the Executive and Literary Director of Pangea World Theater, a progressive, international ensemble space for arts and dialogue. She has led the theater’s growth since it’s founding in 1995. She is a playwright and director and has written several full-length works for Pangea, ranging from adaptations of poetry and mythology to original works dealing with war, spirituality, personal and collective memory.