Melissa MacDonald ’15’s directorial adaptation of Martin Crimp’s play Fewer Emergencies, Emergency 1A, was presented April 23-25 in the Hepburn Zoo. Above all, it is driven by stories. There is no true plot. The characters, in all of their variations, lack a history or true identity. Instead, each character, like their audience, interacts with stories. Narration is not a vehicle for content, but is an endpoint in itself. The greatest surprise in this production is discovering how affecting and exciting these stories are.
Having premiered this past weekend, MacDonald’s Emergency 1A is notable for taking an experimental approach to what is already a heady, abstract piece. The central concept behind MacDonald’s senior thesis work is to produce two versions of the same work, back to back. While sharing the exact same text, two productions, one labeled “1,” the other “A,” differ in every other respect: cast, set, approach, sound design, costumes. The intention behind this approach was to show audiences how different performers interpret and play with the text in different ways.
“Seeing a piece twice shows what the text actually gave and what the people who made it actually gave,” MacDonald said. “There’s the idea that things don’t have to be stuck in one meaning, the idea that there isn’t just one understanding of things.”
The first production was firmer in its setting and characters, as there was only one setting and its characters were consistent from scene to scene. Relative to the second production, there was a more cohesive single story, primarily concerning a group who awaken amid the remains of a party and turn to a dense, freewheeling discussion of hypotheticals, stories and other fictions. Juliette Gobin ’16 and Jabari Matthew ’17 incorporated a background in dance training into their blocking and monologues. Greg Swartz ’17.5, while possessing less formal training in dance, was accordingly influenced by the greater physicality of the production. As each character dug into poetic monologues, their physical motions would punctuate their ruminations, adding an element of dynamism and movement to scenes otherwise devoid of action.
“Cast 1” was driven to a greater extent by an overarching concept and setting.
“I came into it with a small pole of an idea that we then built out of… we had a central image we were working from,” MacDonald said.
She further explained that the physical element came as an addition due to the training and skills of the actors, but also as a result of MacDonald’s personal interest in working physically through theater.
“I found that I really enjoyed using the body in a lot of ways,” she said. “I find it an easier way to access thoughts and impulses.”
For this particular production, MacDonald felt the rhythmic nature of physical movement was a strong visual reflection of the complex and rhythmic nature of the text.
Certainly, the physicality of this first production gave shape to a staging that was otherwise static. It offered a compelling contrast to the “Cast A” production, illuminating particular facets of Crimp’s text that the other production did not. Both productions, however, were anchored by a song, either performed or played near the end. Here, for Cast 1, a recording was played as the characters posed, pausing for long enough to give the impression of snapshots.
At the close of this production, the actors exited the stage, the lights dimmed to blackness, and a siren began to wail. Three figures in dress akin to HAZMAT suits entered with flashlights, directing the audience to exit the theater. The audience began to file out and was led down into the Hepburn Lounge, here repurposed to appear like a bomb shelter. Facemasks and programs, written in computer code-like gibberish, were handed out, and we were directed to put the masks over our faces. Half of the group, myself included, were led out of the lounge and down into the basement, then up again before reentering the theater. The other group stayed behind in the Lounge, checked over with flashlights by the other figures, some given bandages on their hands. By the time we returned to the theater to find the stage reset, we the audience had been thoroughly disoriented, plunged into a chaotic, post-apocalyptic world, parallel to but distinct from our own. From here, “Cast A” began their performance.
Gleefully anarchic, “Cast A’s” production was not tethered to a single setting, nor a single cast of characters. Firmly split into three distinct sections, neither setting was rooted in the real or tangible, but rather the associative, perhaps familiar, but ultimately abstract. The first was something of an attic, the furniture draped in protective linens. As one character, played by Forrest Carroll ’15, gazed into what could assumedly be a window, he offers commentary on what he observes. Here, the stories are given a physical point of entry.
There is a distinct break between this and the next scene, when the lights are dimmed, the set is slightly altered, and characters change costume as Pete Seeger’s “Little Boxes” plays, acting as perhaps the only tangible allusion to the play’s thematic concerns in all of the production. Our three heroes, bound by straightjackets, gather on a couch, staring into a television-like box, offering commentary on what they observe. Here, the central monologue is delivered by Tosca Giustini ’15.5, which is identical in content to that which had been delivered in the first half by Gobin, but rendered completely distinct by its context and delivery.
Following another, similar transition, the third scene begins. The set is perhaps the most abstract yet. No magic box or window offers an entry point for the story. Instead, Arnav Adhikari ’16’s character, prodded by Carroll’s character, delivers an increasingly disturbing monologue that may or may not be fictional. This scene, like in the production of “Cast 1,” is bookended by the same song; here, it is performed by Adhikari’s character. The play closes as the three characters, stripped to their underwear, carry what appears to be a cloth-covered boat out of the theater.
While abstract and challenging, “Cast A” offered an always engaging experience. The clear narrative structure, made more definite by the scene changes, elucidated elements of the text that may have been less of a focus in the production of “Cast 1.” The anarchic elements created a sense of endless discovery; ultimately, the production seemed more concerned with suggestion and emotional impact than a rigid metaphorical rendering of the text, creating a visceral and energizing experience.
This contrasted beautifully with the first half, which offered its own rewards and insight into the text. Through a more tangible and narrow vision, it creates a strong narrative arch. The text and physicality of the actors contextualizes the setting, creating the momentum of the play. The second production, in lacking consistency of setting and character, relies on other expressive elements.
The overall impression of the production is one of bewilderment, vibrancy and intentional chaos. This speaks to MacDonald’s goals going into the show.
“What I really enjoy as an artist is expanding our ways of seeing, having a bigger experience,” she said. “By the end, what I really wanted people to take away was that just because you don’t understand something or know what its meaning is, doesn’t mean it’s meaningless… There’s a benefit in the experience of being lost.”
