Fairbanks theater company takes a risk with new production
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - A Fairbanks theater group is putting on what likely will be one of most provocative productions of the year, the acclaimed play "The Pillowman" by Irish playwright Martin McDonagh.
The production, which opened Friday and continues Fridays and Saturdays through Feb. 21 in a storefront at 3520 Industrial Ave., is the latest from The Green Room, the fledgling theater company that produced last year's well-received "Bash." The storefront location of the production is what's called "pop-up" theater, in which an unusual venue is turned into a temporary theatrical setting.
Director Greg Aldrich described the play, in which a writer is arrested in connection with a series of grisly child deaths that closely resemble his fiction, as "Quentin Tarantino meets Grimm's Fairy Tales." (We're giving no spoilers here, but be aware the performance should be rated "R'' for language and violent imagery.)
"We want to make it an experience the audience will remember," Aldrich said.
Green Room Artistic Director Levi Ben-Israel, who's also starring in the production, recruited his longtime friend and fellow Lathrop High School graduate Aldrich as director because Ben-Israel wanted to showcase as much Fairbanks-grown talent as possible. Aldrich, who is now working on his doctorate in adaptation theory at Southern Illinois University, was visiting Fairbanks last summer when Ben-Israel launched the idea of the two of them working together.
"We both really loved 'Pillowman,'" Aldrich said. "I pitched him my take on it and what I wanted to do with it."
What Aldrich wanted to do was incorporate more nontraditional theater aspects, such as a different venue and audience interaction, a tactic The Green Room used in "Bash." From that, the group sought out the empty storefront on Industrial Avenue and turned it into an impromptu theater that's hosting the production for the duration of its five-week run.
"It's about the intimacy for the space of play. We wanted to suck the audience in tightly to the play," Aldrich said, referring to the close proximity the actors are to the audience. In-between acts, audience members will also transition from one room to another room, with each denoting a different scene in the play. Audience interaction is something more theater groups across the country are incorporating, although the phenomenon has been slow to form in Fairbanks.
To help illustrate the play's visuals - the writings that the main character, Katurian, produces - Ben-Israel asked native Fairbanksan and artist James Stugart, who now lives in Portland and owns an ice-sculpting business, to create digital animations that mirrors the play's fictional works. Throughout the performance and in-between acts, the animation will be projected on walls in the theater. The title of the play comes from one of Katurian's fictional stories.
"It was kind of funny because Levi approached me and said he liked my work, and I told him to send me what he wanted," Stugart said.
Ben-Israel knew Stugart from their time together at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, from which Stugart graduated with a degree in sculpture and animation.
"But I wanted to know more, so I watched the play and ... wow," Stugart said. "Greg, the director, knows it's a dark story and he wanted to lighten it up. With that, I tried to make it not as dark and put some comical features in."
What Aldrich wants to capture with "The Pillowman" is the intimacy the audience shares with the actors.
"The thing that makes theater different is you get to share collectively with the artists right there," Aldrich said. "They feel you are there, you know you are there, and you have this collective sharing of the story. When theater is at its best, it does what other mediums can't - that moment of honesty between the artists and the audience. I've always wanted to come back and do more theater there and push the boundaries of what people see."
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, http://www.newsminer.com