Flipped Shadows.

Sam and I went to this American Repertory Theater performance in Harvard Square. Aurelia's Oratorio. Strange, Brilliant.

When the lights came up, there was this chest of drawers on the stage. An arm came out of one of the drawers, a leg came out of another. The hand put a red high heel on the foot. Aurelia's head popped out of another drawer, smiled.

After a bit more play, she climbed out of the drawer, pulled out a red scarf, put it on, but the scarf kept going. Going and going until it was stretched across the stage several times over. She climbed up the scarf, swung from it like a trapeeze artist, stretched it out like a hammock and lay in it. She swung back and forth, and I wanted so badly to be exactly there, cradled like a baby, suspended in the middle of the stage.

On and on with these strange images. Women dressed like curtains with shoes on their heads carried a chair upside down. Aurelia called for a taxi, and attached herself to the chair, so she was sitting upside down. She performed a human show for a congregation of puppets that clapped and jumped in their seats. She took out a bouquet of plastic flowers, snifed them deeply, then stuffed the tops in a vase, so the stems made a stark arrangement. A black coat lined with red satin dropped from above the stage, and stayed suspended, covering the top of Aurelia's head; she tap danced, so she looked like a giant headless person. Another performer, a man kept coming on stage, looking and shouting for Aurelia, dancing the tango and fighting with empty jackets. At one point, and I don't even know how to describe it, but it looked like someone's grey shadow was walking upright, and their real, colorful self was spread out on the ground. Aurelia stopped to ask the shadow the time.

Another time, perhaps my favorite, a lacey monster ate Aurelia's foot, her leg up to her thigh. She knitted a new one. Then a lacey (but motherly) monster patted and cooed Aurelia to sleep.

Such a pleasure to see. I wish that it would have had a bit more of a narrative arc, and a bit more of a rough edge. But maybe that wasn't what it was going for.

Sam and I like to see this stuff because it helps us re-think our writing, the way we see the world. Don't know how to use it yet, but it was a delight to see and think.