Relating to The Catamounts, the present can go on in seemingly unlikely locations.
From a rolling golf course in Westminster to a defunct dairy farm that when equipped milk to the tuberculosis sufferers of Jewish Nationwide Hospital on Sheridan Boulevard. From a marshy open area close to the foot of the Flatirons to the sculpture park adjoining to Fiddler’s Inexperienced. These are among the many municipal (typically suburban) areas which have gotten a contemporary, daring cost from collaborations between the theater troupe and its civic companions.
Now, the Boulder-based theater firm — which focuses on sudden, partaking, typically achingly smart, more and more immersive work (below the inventive path of Amanda Berg Wilson) — has gently commandeered a nook of Thornton’s Anythink Library for its newest immersive journey, “After the Finish.”
A part of the Rangeview Library District, this department is fairly and welcoming even with out a beguiling present about — what else? — books. Or one e-book particularly, one which stands in for all of the dusty volumes and their forgotten sagas that find yourself retired by Adjudicators to make room for different tales.
Viewers members are guided by rooms because the story unfolds as participant observers: There’s an outsized closet filled with books, a schoolhouse, a practice automobile, a grocery and extra.
The story options Lena, a younger lady looking for a duplicate of the novel that her grandmother wrote. On the outset of “After the Finish,” Lena bursts right into a convention room the place viewers members are seated and shortly ropes those that are gathered into serving to her discover the novel Gracelynn Fern penned a few younger lady named Mollie Bardo. Mollie was, because the title of the misplaced e-book avers, “Stranded in Silver Hill,” because of a slew of highly effective snowstorms.
Lena didn’t actually know her grandmother, and though she got here into possession of Fern’s journals, she didn’t learn them earlier than they had been all however misplaced. An nameless letter containing a catalog card (ahem, not the Dewey Decimal System) and a key ship Lena (and us) on a hunt. And what higher place to hunt out a uncommon quantity than a library?
Earlier than we embark on the pursuit, Lena affords a couple of of the standard (if cleverly launched) caveats of libraries and theaters: hold it to a whisper and cellphones off. However she additionally says one thing odd and prophetic to the viewers: “Oh, and also you’re you. I do know that’s a bizarre factor to say, however typically I don’t really feel fairly like myself, like I’m enjoying a personality.”
It doesn’t take lengthy to comprehend that unusual issues are afoot. The primary cease is that storage closet, referred to as the Library of the Misplaced. After Fern’s e-book is discovered, the group wends its means by the “set.” As Lena and we, the unintentional gamers, learn out loud from the pages of “Stranded,” it turns into clear that the novel is eerily just like the motion. Or vice versa. Are Lena and Mollie melding? Definitely, the schoolmarm Aunt Package (an archly amusing McPherson Horle) thinks one thing’s awry in the way in which Mollie is behaving.
Fabian Vasquez portrays the endearing practice porter, Gray John, who tries to place Lena and her fellow passengers comfortable as soon as the practice can’t go any additional. The dance he shares with Mollie — or is she Lena? — is a candy turning level. Don Randle is rightly officious because the Adjudicator, and amusing as longtime Silver Hill resident and mildly unbearable mayor Cappy Winslow.
On a latest Saturday afternoon, Lena was performed with energetic heat by Min Kyung (Cecillia) Kim, who alternates the function of the looking out granddaughter with Adeline Mann.
As immersive exhibits go, “After the Finish,” seems splendidly modest. By the work to coordinate the sound design (Max Silverman), the interval costumes and prop foraging (Joan Bruemmer-Holden and Linda Lea, respectively), the set upon which the viewers roves (manufacturing designer Matthew Schlief and stage supervisor Rain Younger) is not any imply feat.
The charming “After the Finish” is written and co-conceived by Luke Sorge, who has labored on the library for 13 years. His title: Generalist Information. While you’re fairly actually within the midst of a narrative unfolding, it’s not at all times simple to actually hear the language. However a number of the traces are splendidly poetic.
“My grandmother wrote it. Her identify was — properly, nonetheless is, even when she’s gone, it’s nonetheless her identify, proper?” Lena says with a priority about the best existential verb those that’ve misplaced family members know properly. The script balances melancholy and surprise, confusion and various ah-has, with understated aplomb.
When the Anythink Libraries opened (beginning in 2010), they had been an intriguing rethink of how libraries might serve residents. Their mission assertion: “We Open Doorways for Curious Minds” properly echoes the Catamount motto: “Theater for the Adventurous Palette.”
“We’re continuously imagining methods to attach our group to issues they might need or want, whether or not that’s conventional library supplies like books and computer systems, or non-traditional issues like Cricut machines and musical devices,” mentioned Sorge in an electronic mail.
“Immersive theatre is simply an extension of that. Providing a comparatively new and thrilling type of performing arts — freed from cost, like all the pieces on the library — is absolutely in line with Anythink’s core values. And, as we do with a lot of our programming, we love collaborating with native artists and consultants like The Catamounts.”
Lisa Kennedy is a Denver-area freelancer specializing in movie and theater.
IF YOU GO
“After the Finish”: Written by Luke Sorge. Directed by Amanda Berg Wilson. That includes Min Kyung (Cecillia) Kim and Adeline Mann (alternating performances), McPherson Horle, Fabian Vasquez and Don Randle. At Anythink Library, 9417 Huron St., Thornton, by Sept. 14. For tickets and data: thecatamounts.org.
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