No one can accuse Pamela Enz of not tackling the big questions.
Life, death, afterlife, sex, physics, the zeitgeist, mysticism, the nature of the universe and the fate of humanity are all touched on in Enz’s latest play, “Falling Sideways Off The Edge Of The Earth,” now playing at the Theater for the New City in the East Village.
While the non-linear production sprung from Enz’s pen, the team that collaborated with her made strong contributions to the current staging. Sculptor Eve Laroche-Joubert created the minimalist set; Joan Pope contributed rapid-fire black-and-white video backgrounds that change from scene to scene; Elliott Randall wrote the music; and C.C. Kellogg and Avery Wigglesworth co-directed an energetic cast.
Enz has been working on this one for awhile now — “decades!” she says, laughing.
“That includes latent periods when life was teaching me one thing on the surface while beneath my passions patiently waited to surface,” Enz explains. “I never set out to do something … but a certain gestation takes place before a story is born from out of a pile of notes, monologues, various lines sprung from my own consciousness or being alert and sensitive to the marvelous things one can hear people say out loud passing one on the street “.
Co-director Kellogg remarks that “Pam has a very unique style and voice” and notes that the play “is also structurally unusual, kaleidoscopic rather than traditionally narrative.” She relates that while working with a non-linear play is a challenge, it’s also a delight.
“The main challenge is how to stage such an unusual world,” Kellogg says. “A world that shifts between timescales, in the liminal space between life and death. Nothing felt set in stone, which gave us so much room to explore in rehearsals. I hope people enjoy that openness and feel free to bring their own interpretation to the text, which is surrealist but has a real beating heart in its mother/daughter narrative. It has been such a pleasure to interpret and play in the world of ‘Falling.'”
Wigglesworth also mentions the play’s uniqueness and makes a case for its structure.
“The human heart and mind cannot be wrapped neatly into a simple narrative, not when you take into account all of the inexplicable magic and mysteries of the world,” she says. “This play embraces the abstract — in everything from plot to sentence structure — in an attempt to offer a theatrical experience that’s more akin to our actual human existence.”
Enz praises everyone involved for their contributions, with special mentions for a cast that digs into a demanding script. The characters include a virgin bride, a vagabond mystic, a puppet and a ghost (or two).
“C.C. and Avery cast an amazing troupe of actors including Gina Hoben who made the lead her very own, Marlon Xavier who shines within a powerhouse of female mega talent that includes Violet Savage, Ana Semedo and Karen Cecilia, who delicately balances science and mysticism in her portal of the physicist,” she says.
The dense (and sometimes exhausting) goings-on are played out on a minimal set from the talented Laroche-Joubert.
In the center of the black box theater is a large white seesaw adorned with a blanket and a pillow, created for its ability to lift the actors up and to provide some visual metaphors.
Of the prop, the designer says, “You could express so many literal, poetical and metaphorical scenes! Shifting weight, losing balance, recovering balance, moving, rocking are all inspiring and dynamic gestures.The simpler the object, the more imaginative the actors can be!”
Randall, who first made his mark in popular culture by playing some indelible lead guitar on early Steely Dan classics, came to the project without any “preconceived notions about the music I would compose to support the drama.”
He relates that, “I’ve written for plays and for films before. The music is always there to enhance the presentation. Sometimes it’s ‘in your face’ and other times it’s a subtle aural backdrop — much as in good cinema. What I love about Pam’s writing is that it’s ‘no holds barred/take no prisoners’ — which allows me to take my ideas to the furthest reaches of composition. It’s a dream come true!”
Enz, who continued to tweak the show right up to opening night, had a few life experiences that affected the work — including the passing of both of her parents, her introduction to the Italian physicist, Pier Luigi Capucci, and her discovery of the establishment of Mysterianism, a strand of thinking that posits that even though there is nothing supernatural about how consciousness arises from neural activity, the human brain is simply not equipped to understand it.
In other words, our brains are not really capable of understanding our brains.
“I truly believe that the universe is one being,” Enz explains. “All of its parts are different expressions of the same energy, in communication with and influencing each other — therefore parts of one organic whole.”
She notes one thing that she hopes the audience will take away from her work: “I’d like them to take away the scientifically-accepted miraculous — that every living being is born of the exact same stardust as ourselves. That we mistakenly seek to narrow down life, that screaming bundle of uncertainty, to the imaginable to deal with our fear of loss — the certain loss that accompanies all of life and love terrifying us into wasting time when we might instead exalt in the privilege of having emerged from the nothingness of everything.”
“Falling Sideways” runs through Jan. 28. Show info and tickets are at theaterforthenewcity.net/
