Play
Premiere to Explore Flip Side of Theater
 Flip Side is
the centerpiece of an international collaboration between
Ellen Maddow and Paul Zimet, OBIE Award-winning cofounders
of The Talking Band, Hungarian-born set designer Anna Kiraly,
and BESSIE Award-winning composer and keyboardist “Blue” Gene
Tyranny.
The world premiere of Flip Side will
take place at Smith October 24 through 27 at 8 p.m., and
October 27 and 28 at 2 p.m. in Theatre 14, Mendenhall Center.
The team of Maddow and Zimet has delighted Pioneer Valley
audiences in the past with such gems as Star Messengers, The
Parrot, and last season’s sold-out comedy Delicious
Rivers. With Flip Side, The Talking Band again
stretches the boundaries of theatre and flips around the
creative process by taking a visual space as its impulse
for a new play. Inspired by designer Anna Kiraly’s
visual environment, playwright Ellen Maddow developed two
sets of characters whose separate worlds churn, collide,
and flip upside down as if they are entangled in a giant
Mobius strip.
Development of Flip Side began
in December 2006 within the Talking Band’s Performance Lab with the
group brainstorming for a new creative process. With the
idea of starting from the set, Kiraly created two tent-like
structures (gazebos) on stage. Their lightweight architecture
suggests temporary shelter or makeshift homes. Because the
structures are lightweight and portable it’s possible
to make the entire scenic element disappear and reappear.
The gazebos also became projection surfaces for shadows and
videos created by Kiraly. “I began by showing Ellen
and Paul a lot of drawings and ideas from my past that I
found fascinating and wanted to develop,” said Kiraly
of the design process for Flip Side. “It’s
such a joy as a designer to create a set through dialogue
instead of creating a world around finished ideas. It’s
a huge inspiration.”
When asked how Kiraly’s design fueled her development
of the characters and dialogue, Maddow said, “I loved
Anna’s unapologetic sense of illusion, which is what
theatre is all about—creating an illusion that refers
to something in reality, but also twists it in such a way
that it allows you to see it more deeply...It became clear
in the first workshop that one of the most provocative aspects
of this set was its ephemeral nature—nothing is concrete.” So
she developed characters obsessed with the ephemeral, pre-occupied
with events witnessed from a distance, and fascinated by
that which is just out of reach or partially hidden. The
audience shares the experience of the characters who try
to draw conclusions from events glimpsed out of the corners
of their eyes; they are not sure what is real and what is
a reflection, a film, or a shadow.
Maddow, a founding member of The Talking Band and a member
of New Dramatists, was awarded a prestigious NEA/TCG Theatre
Residency for Playwrights to write Flip Side for
The Talking Band. She is the writer and composer of numerous
other music-theatre works, including Painted Snake in
a Painted Chair, for which she a won a 2003 OBIE Award.
Karaly, who was born in
Hungary, has designed for stages throughout Eastern Europe
and has exhibited her visual work in museums and festivals
worldwide. Her designs, much like The Talking Band’s
work, are noted for challenging traditional aesthetics
and extracting complex meanings from simple elements.
Original music for Flip Side will
be composed and performed by the distinguished avant-garde
composer and keyboard player “Blue” Gene Tyranny.
In addition to past collaborations with The Talking Band,
Tyranny has collaborated and recorded with Laurie Anderson,
Robert Ashley, Peter Gordon, and John Cage. He is also
the recipient of a BESSIE Award for his work in theatre
and dance.
Paul Zimet, associate professor of theatre at Smith and
artistic director of The Talking Band, has directed a number
of acclaimed productions at Smith, including Star Messengers,
The Parrot, and last season’s Delicious Rivers. He
received a 2003 Village Voice OBIE Award for his direction
of The Talking Band production of Painted Snake in a
Painted Chair, and also three OBIE Awards for his work
with the Open Theater and the Winter Project, both directed
by Joseph Chaikin.
Tickets for Flip Side are $8 for general public,
$5 for students and seniors. For more information or to buy
tickets, call 413-585-ARTS (2787) or consult www.smith.edu/smitharts. |
