Introducing ART: Mercury Company

LC Dawes — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 21:16:49 +0000

From audio dramas to short films, and plays written for post-pandemic production, a repertory company of over 50 artists were hired with PPP Funds to create 12 projects in June 2020

Produced by ShutterSky Pictures, 2020

For the month of June, over 50 writers, directors, educators, actors, technicians, designers, and producers (including several ART staff) were hired to collaboratively create theatre-inspired work that moves beyond the traditional form in response to shelter-in-place orders and public assembly restrictions. Individuals were involved in a multitude of projects, forming a rapidly assembled repertory company dubbed the ART: Mercury Company. Projects were developed independently, or via collaborative meetings in Zoom and in-person recording and filming sessions under strict physically distanced work protocols. Artists Rep will begin releasing its Mercury created content during Summer and Fall of 2020. The theatre seeks funding to continue this method of collaboration and content creation throughout the duration of the pandemic, and beyond.

“The pandemic has forced the disruption of our operating assumptions. Rather than waiting it out, we are testing new ideas for pursuing our mission and are re-imagining what ART will be whenever it is safe for audiences and artists to gather again. Thanks to the nimble work of our team–who wrote dozens of contracts, purchased equipment, made and remade schedules while quickly learning new ways of working online and in person–we were able to use Payroll Protection funds to hire artists on mostly full-time salaries comparable to our mainstage programming.”

ART Artistic Director, Dámaso Rodríguez

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ART: Mercury Company Projects

Magellanica Audio Drama

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Director’s Note: A Doll’s House, Part 2

cdeyoung@artistsrep.org — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 12:27:39 +0000

When I was fifteen, I played Nora in the East Anchorage High School winter production of Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. No doubt I brought the same understanding and nuance to this role as I had to my performance as the Mayor of Whoville in Horton Hears a Who a few months earlier. The boy who played Nora’s husband Torvald was sixteen – with a shadow on his upper lip that, when emphasized with mascara, made him look very distinguished – and together we plumbed the depths of one of the most renowned and complex relationships in theatrical history.

In Ibsen’s drama, the young wife Nora forges her father’s signature and takes out a secret loan to pay for the treatment her deathly ill husband requires. After covertly saving Torvald’s life, she spends several years quietly repaying the loan by scrimping on household expenses. When he finds out what she has done, Torvald is outraged, and – ignoring that she saved his life— he declares that she has disgraced him and is morally unfit to raise their children. Realizing that he never has – and never will – regard her as more than a doll/child, Nora hands back her wedding ring and walks out the door, slamming the door behind her and leaving her comfortable, bourgeois life for an uncertain, probably grim future. (You can see why it was a thrilling piece to perform at fifteen – forgery, false accusations, noble self-sacrifice, and door slamming!)

When it premiered in 1879, that slam was heard round the world. Audiences were shocked. Shocked! How dare Ibsen question the appropriateness of men lording it over the little ladies? How could Nora possibly be a decent, moral person if she wants recognition as a thinking human being, and not just as the little wife and mother? What would keep the chaos at bay if men weren’t The Deciders? Well. Lo, all these years later, we still haven’t satisfactorily answered these questions.

A Doll’s House, Part 2 is Lucas Hnath’s puckish riposte to Ibsen. Part 2 starts fifteen years after the Grand Slam with a knock at the very same door. It’s a playful, feisty philosophic sparring match, testing propositions about marriage, power, gender roles, and fairness. The delight of this play is that all four characters are bracingly honest, nimble thinkers, equally capable of lobbing trenchant bombs of wit. Into this fizzy brew of Ibsen’s provocative notions, Lucas Hnath adds a new, highly combustible ingredient: self-actualization. Nora left her family so that she might become her best self, leading her best life – a distinctly 21st Century notion. All fine and dandy, but at what cost and to whom? She returns to discover that her lofty goals are not universally shared, and when the chickens come home to roost there’s a lot more poop to contend with.

I’m delighted to be spending time again with Nora and Torvald (and now Anne Marie and Emmy, too). At fifteen, I may have missed some of Ibsen’s finer philosophical points, so it is delicious to wrestle now with Lucas Hnath’s marvelous follow up. Like Ibsen, Hnath asks big questions about what we owe to each other and to ourselves – questions that apply equally in our private and social lives. If you are as weary as I am of the infantile blurting that passes for public discourse lately, I hope you’ll find it refreshing to hear adults engaged in passionate, articulate, persuasive debate.