Kathe Koja | Writing about writing

Here’s the third cast member of “Bottom’s Folly,” Scott Van Sice, whose embodiment of Bottom will lead our audience into folly and, we trust, back out again. Today was a day spent shaping that performance, in the breeze, beside the green labyrinth, under skies of knockout blue . . .

. . . so very different from the world Under the Poppy, where the cast of “Love Conquers All” conquered all present in a Victorian-era house of pillars, velvet, and genteel ruin . . .

. . . and yet these two stories are very much the same, in the sense that they happen and will happen as stories around and before those watching, fiction and fable in settings that create the tale, too. Call it site specific, call it immersive, or performative fiction: the story comes to life in life’s own setting. And, if you’re there, you are there.

[Under the Poppy cast photograph courtesy Rick Lieder.]

Emily Rose has also been cast in “Bottom’s Folly,” another sprite in the forest, another spirit of the natural world.  The natural world: is there any other? Emily knows how to dance in the depths of the green.

Casting is a mysterious business.  There’s a vigorous and continuing discussion regarding Under the Poppy‘s two leads, Rupert and Istvan – Louis Garrel‘s recently been suggested for the former, Simon Woods for the latter – and I’ve had my own fun casting for the latest Under the Poppy performance coming up on May 11, “Love Conquers All.”

One of the performers who’ll appear in that event is Vanessa Hentschel. Vanessa also played one of the seductive floozies in Under the Poppy’s “Puppets & Passion” at the Detroit Institute of Arts, and will portray a sprite of the woods – is she wicked, is she beguiling, is she both? – in “Bottom’s Folly.”

What’s exciting is to watch the different faces of Vanessa-the-performer come alive in the differing roles, and to wonder whose face, whose mask do we see when we see a fictional character portrayed? Whorl upon whorl of fiction!  The process continues . . .

When Stan and Robin Mendenhall entertain their guests, they want to go above and beyond . . .  all the way above, to the top of their architectural folly, a lovely and audacious structure on the grounds of their home in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Stan and Robin wanted to commission a performance piece at an event they’re hosting this June, and I responded with “Bottom’s Folly, or The Natural World,” a pastoral fantasia featuring Bottom, the gent with a (donkey) head on his shoulders, and two beautifully fierce wood sprites, as they define what’s wild, what’s urban, and what flourishes in the spaces in-between. The performance will incorporate the garden (complete with a labyrinth. chickens, and a city park for a background!) as staging ground and metropolis, as the sun leaves the sky, and the warm summer dusk comes on . . .

The last several years have found me working to bring Under the Poppy to life in an ongoing series – call them chapters – of performances; the latest, “Love Conquers All,” will be staged May 11th in a Victorian-era home in Detroit. “Bottom’s Folly” was and is a chance to work with very different material, a site-specific fiction written to embrace the pleasures and dangers of nature and of folly, thanks to Stan and Robin’s generous vision of what creativity is all about – a different kind of lovely audacity, and a bracing example of one way to bring original art to life.

… the puppets played: humans playing puppets, and a puppet among them, gleeful and self-contained, borne by a puppeteer in a plague mask and a long black cloak … Watching the characters of the Poppy come to life in this way meant something different to those present who were new to the story; those who knew the story well; the actors; and the writer. 

Having considered and created the script for this performance event – an exercise in performative fiction: not only a script, not only the book, but an ongoing amalgamation of the story itself, incorporating the performed events that came before this evening, with the page and its language as the guide – to watch it happen in real time, real actors and a real puppet and the shadow puppetry on the screen; the video projections of earlier moments – call them chapters – of the story, was a way to see the story in motion, to observe and learn … And it was a joy.

And being able to do so at the Detroit Institute of Arts, surrounded and buoyed by art, the doors of our playing space facing the puppet cases holding citizens of the stage, just like us – it was an amazing evening. One night only, standing room only (we had to turn away some would-be patrons), ephemeral and unforgettable – what a show!

[Photo credits: KK, Rick Lieder, Diane Cheklich, Gary Schwartz, KK. Actors: Brooklyn Dimitrie, Vanessa Ellen Hentschel, Mona Lucuis, Steven O'Brien, Annabelle Young.  Puppeteer: Megan Harris, with Pan Loudermilk.]

Do stop and see the puppets, won’t you? [Graphic design by Jackie Zimmerman.]

If we are sighted, we read with our eyes. We take in character – from the story; from the world in the room around us, the bus, the top of the stairway, the cubicle hallway – with our eyes. Actors act with their eyes, as well as with their bodies, their voices, what is said and how; or not.

Watching the auditions for our performance of Under the Poppy – watching the rehearsals – watching the actors, a body quiet in a chair: I’m taking in the story with my own eyes, as if I were reading it again; anew. As a writer this is humbling and exhilarating and so very valuable, seeing what the actors make of the words, seeing how they take in, then decide to use or not use, the rhythms there, finding and making a way with their bodies through the landscape of the text, explorers, buccaneers, tricksters, charmers. Will this change the way I see, the way I work? How can it not? Thank you, actors. I’m watching you.

Under the Poppy comes to the Detroit Institute of Arts – save the date, 2/17/12, 8 PM – a sentence it gives me great pleasure to post. Many thanks to Larry Baranski, DIA director of public programs, for the invitation and hospitality.

Collaborating with filmmaker Diane Cheklich and puppet artist Megan Harris, and co-producing with Julanne Jacobs, we plan to create an atmosphere as darkly pleasurable, as we bring the tale of the Poppy to the halls of the museum, watched – and no doubt watched over – by the puppets of the Paul McPharlin Collection. Come to Detroit and be part of that pleasure. And if you have a top hat, you might want to bring it along, too . . .

“Love Is A Puppet” made its passionate and singular appearance at Victorian Opulence, the elegant phantasmagoria of an evening at District VII Detroit. Jordan Whalen reprised his role as Istvan, and Andrick Siegmund played Gabriel, the very earthy angel, as the audience watched from the secluded booth and perched high up on the stairs. . . . A wonderful performance, a wonderful night. Bravo, gentlemen of the road!

Under the Poppy is very pleased to take part in Victorian Opulence, where “Love Is A Puppet” will be performed for one night only. For those of you who came to our event during the People’s Art Festival at the Russell Industrial Center, this is the next way station on the road that leads to the full performance under the Poppy’s own roof.  For those who have not, welcome to our show! Sip the chocolate, taste the petits fours, inhale the scent of roses, tip your top hat … I’ll be happy to sign your copy of the novel as well, as you take in the visual art, the corsetry show, and the reading from Tennyson. Victorian dress is much encouraged. See you in Rivertown, downtown Detroit, with the moon on the water and the frost on the ivy, too.