“We don’t necessarily exist or think linearly. We daydream, we night dream. We think of events that have happened in the past and think, ‘What if I’d done this or that?’“— director Lynn Goodwin

things happen the way they happen. He gets flummoxed when they don’t follow a certain order.”

“He’s microcosm and she’s macrocosm, but they both follow the same paths of discovery in their separate fields,” Goodwin said.

The ethereal nature of the play — which will be performed in the round on a black-box set — disconcerted the actors at first. Harrison is the founder and artistic director of Ironweed Productions. Since 2004 he has produced, directed, and acted in classic American narrative plays by luminaries including Sam Shepard and Arthur Miller. “There is an interesting dynamic when you’re doing a play with a straight story,” he said. “As an actor, you can sometimes feel like you’re not connecting [to the story]. In

you might feel that, but then you’re on to the next thing. You have all these opportunities to put yourself back in the moment.”

Renzo appeared in the 2016 Adobe Rose production of by Michel Tremblay, a play that shares some similarities with — namely that time and relationships are not fixed. But Renzo does not generally gravitate to nonlinear, nongrounded plays. “I really prefer straightforward dramas that have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In early rehearsals of I was throwing temper tantrums, throwing my script on the floor, flailing around, and screaming in frustration — and then it would always end in laughter,” she said. “That’s just the way I am energetically. I have to let it out. But it has been a privilege and an honor to reintroduce myself to a different level of craft. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to sit with a piece in this way, be spontaneous and in the moment, and move from world to world.”

If the structure of still seems opaque, perhaps consider the awareness of story one has in dreams or in reverie. “We don’t necessarily exist or think linearly. We daydream, we night dream. We think of events that have happened in the past and think, ‘What if I’d done this or that?’ ” Goodwin said. “You create an emotional arc in a dream, but then you can’t quite remember what happened, except for the emotional reality.” Or, to put it another way: “The simultaneous realities that exist in multiverses only occur because certain choices would be made — like a pinball. Another ball hits another cog in the machine and goes off at a slightly different angle. The whole science part is fascinating. I don’t pretend to understand it. The way it’s constructed in the play, you ultimately have a complete story, even though you see so many possible permutations of relationships.”

Theater-goers who wish to delve more deeply into the science and philosophy of multiverse theories are invited to a talk-back with Van Savage, an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute, following the March 25 matinee of Savage will discuss the impact of these ideas on the events in our lives and describe how subtly explores the intricate connections between mundane and major events. ▼ ▼

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