‘Walden’ a brilliant mix of environmental themes
To stage Amy Berryman’s relationship drama “Walden,” which is set in a tiny house in a grassy wooded area, TheaterWorks Hartford has built a tiny house in a grassy wooded area on the newest section of Riverfront Recapture land in Windsor.
Theater doesn’t really need to be that literal, but in this case a hyper-realized production adds entire new dimensions to the play.
At its heart, “Walden” is a family drama about sisters, who’ve been competing all their lives: for academic honors, for prestigious jobs and for making groundbreaking discoveries. In their youth, they also competed for their father’s attention and respect, both of them following in his career path as employees of NASA.
The sisters’ very names — Cassie (short for Cassiopeia) and Stella (Latin for “star”) — evoke celestial bodies. But while Cassie (neatly played by Jeena Yi as both severe and a little insecure) is an astronaut, Stella (Diana Oh, warm yet intense) has left her job as a space architect and planted her feet firmly on the Earth. Stella and her fiancé Bryan (Gabriel Brown, so at ease that you forget he’s acting) live in an awesome little house, with an adjacent garden and
chicken coop.
The sibling rivalry is what keeps “Walden” sparking for 100 minutes, but there are other cosmic clashes that lift the drama to a different level. That’s where TheaterWorks’ ingenious setting makes all the difference.
Berryman has cleverly set “Walden” in a not-too-distant future time, where there are breakthroughs in space exploration that Cassie and Stella can take credit for, and also a global movement of “Earth Advocates” which makes today’s staunchest environmentalists seem like lightweights. The playwright imagines some all too believable consequences of the world going on as it is now. There are fascinating debates about saving this planet vs. colonizing others, about opposing all synthetic foods, about the ethics of living with a small amount of electricity rather than none at all.
The play is named, as you might have guessed, after the classic Henry David Thoreau text — which Cassie hilariously dismisses as “a whiny hipster’s blog.” Such lively dialogue is enhanced by the lived-in environment conjured up by TheaterWorks Hartford.
Imagine seeing characters in a play argue to the point where one of them walks off in a huff... then keeps walking and walking and walking off into the distance until she disappears from view. Imagine the characters talking about their plans for the evening as the sun sets in real time.
Imagine two people having a discussion on a deck outside their house, and another person leaning out a window to say she heard everything they said, and you knowing she could because she is close enough.
TheaterWorks looks out for its theatergoers. There are a lot of parking places. If you can’t walk the quarter mile to the stage area, you can request transport. A container of bug spray is placed under each seat. The playbill is printed on a cardboard fan in case it gets sweaty out there.
Every audience member gets their own set of headphones. This is, at first, the most disorienting aspect of the show, but you soon get used to it, and realize what a pleasure it is to not worry about hearing the dialogue. You hear everything: whispering, gasping, breathing, a tea kettle boiling, the uncorking and pouring of a bottle of wine. The actors know they don’t need to project their voices, and the nuance in their voices is exquisite.
Some effects are manmade and fit in well with the serendipitous acts of nature. Real-life chickens go to bed at the first hint of darkness, so some of their clucking is pre-recorded. There’s an orchestrated thunderstorm, majestic and drenching, whereas if there were a real one the performance would have to be postponed. The Riverfront Recapture site is magical, but there’s also some brilliant direction (by Mei Ann Teo) and design work (set by You-Shin Chen, lighting by Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew, sound by Hao Bai) here.
“Walden” was not written expressly to be staged outdoors. That’s TheaterWorks’ vision. The play has had one previous production, a few months ago, in a conventional theater in London. Performing it on precisely the sort of land the play talks about needing to respect and preserve means that every aspect of the show glows. The ecological arguments aren’t just window dressing. There’s no backstage for the characters to hide. Nature enhances naturalism. Everything is at the forefront. Everything counts.
The live outdoor run of “Walden” has been extended through Aug. 29. The show will also stream Aug. 15-29, a whole other style of intimate performance.
“Walden” can be seen live through Aug. 29, Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m. on the Riverfront Recapture property at 100 Meadow
Road in Windsor; $95 for a lawn seat or $150 for the front row. A streaming version is available on demand Aug.
15 to 29 for $25. A special
“Pop Up” stream with added comments and theater trivia is available Aug. 20 to 29. twhartford.org or 860-5277838.