Review: Solas Nua's Double Bill Opens Thrilling New Horizons for DC Theater

If there is one thing that traditional theaters strive to achieve, it is intimacy.  The sensation that you and you alone are the one whom performers are communicating with.  Actors devote their craft to a communication so direct, so crystal clear, that it immerses you in the world of the character and the world of the play.

Of course, there are many obstacles to achieving this intimacy; to begin, with consider the usual physical and spatial barriers between the audience and performer; a raised stage, the clearly-visible lighting grid overhead, the speakers, the dim glow behind the glass pane marking the stage manager’s booth.  Then there’s that line of tape on the floor of a black box theater, beyond which one dare not venture, because beyond is the actor’s space, not yours.  Taken all in all, the odds of any real intimacy between actor and audience are quite remote indeed.

Which renders time spent with Solas Nua’s latest project so unique and so thrilling.  In collaboration with two innovative young companies from Ireland, Dublin’s Murmuration and Galway’s Brú Theatre, we have a vision of the future of theatre which takes the new technologies of sound and film in stride. The results are pieces that occur right next to you, enveloping you in a warmth you won’t find outside of that snug in your favorite pub.

The first revelation, of the high-tech variety, comes from Brú Theatre’s “Ar Ais Arís,” three contrasting scenes on the theme of migration.  Performed in Irish, you will have the English translation ready to hand, should you so choose.  And before going into the performance/viewing area you’ll be reminded that just as America is a nation of immigrants, Ireland is a nation of migrants, and its relationship with that inexorable pull of foreign lands—America, England, wherever—is one that has meant different things at different times. 

One minute, a woman from the 1910’s prepares for her daughter’s departure as if for a funeral—return to Ireland was seen as impossible in those days.  The next, a dejected young woman from the 50’s who has tried and failed to survive abroad returns home, and dances and drinks with abandon outside the old village church, while men gossip rudely about her.  Finally, an emigrant of our own time sits in a spartan apartment with visions of the water back home, inescapable. 

These vignettes are staged in the open air, on location in Ireland.  As filmed by VR Cinematographer Paul Kinsella, once you put on your headset and headphones, everywhere you look is Ireland, and the three women you encounter will look you in the eye, only you, and as their stories unfold—often through movement alone—you can almost feel the breeze one minute, the next minute checking your feet because, at the water’s edge, the water seemingly engulfs your shoes.  Virtual Reality at its theatrical, intimate, best. 

Brú Theatre’s Artistic Director, James Riordan, demonstrates how VR can create a riveting experience, and the proximity of the actor to the camera frees his performers—Victoria Mc Cormack, Stephanie Dufresne, and Anna Mullarkey—to use an often-remarkable minimalism, mingled with moments of abandon that play out against a rugged, beautiful landscape.

After that all-engulfing experience with Brú, you are invited to put down the headset and move to an adjacent space where two actors perform Murmuration’s relationship tragicomedy “Summertime.”  Two actors (Murmuration’s Finbarr Doyle and D.C. actress Rebecca Ballinger) talk simultaneously, in parallel, about their lives and their off-and-on relationship with each other.  Director John King, rather than block out the stereotypical he-said-she-said, dueling monologue kind of setting, frees Doyle and Ballinger to move about freely, talking directly with the small assembled crowd.

The dialogue is carefully synchronized in such a way that you hear both Doyle and Ballinger talking at once, with strategic pauses enabling you to hear that stray, cutting remark, seemingly at a distance, but suddenly foregrounded.  Both of them walk among you, sit with you, and although they briefly interact with each other, eye contact with the audience is constant.  Moreover, depending on where you sit, the sound system is rigged in such a way that you will hear, foregrounded, the actor closest to you, while still able to track their partner’s travails recounted just feet away.

Live theater remains the gold standard, to be sure; but Murmuration and Brú Theatre will show you how technology, deftly handled, can add new dimensions to our theater experience.  Forget the fourth wall, forget the mere illusion of reality—here are visions of reality that, visually and aurally, can transfix you and renew your aesthetic sensibility.

A note on timing:  because the shows rotate regularly, and take about 1 hour total, you are free to choose to watch “Summertime” first and “Ar Ais Arís” second, as you wish.  Performances are at the Eaton House at 12th and K Streets NW, and you will be guided from the back lobby to the 4th floor for the shows.

Production Photo:  Victoria Mc Cormack, Stephanie Dufresne, and Anna Mullarkey from “Ar Ais Arís.”  Photo by Julia Dunin.

Running Time:  1 hour, with one transition between VR and live performance.

"Summertime" and "Ar Ais Aris" performs through November 17 at Eaton House, 1201 K St. NW, Washington, D.C., 20005.  Tickets are $45 for General Admission and $10 for Students.  Performance times and sequences vary.  For more information, visit: 

https://www.solasnua.org/events/double-billing-murmurations-summertime-and-bru-theatres-ar-ais-aris

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