This weekend, the Macalester Theater and Dance Department will open its season with “Tongue of a Bird,” a play by Ellen McLaughlin and directed by department chair Beth Cleary. At face value, the story is deceptively simple—a young girl, Charlotte, goes missing in the woods, and her mother, Dessa, enlists the help of a pilot, Maxine, to aid in the search.

More accurately, “Tongue of a Bird” poetically depicts the unlikely intersection of hope, despair, knowledge and resolution, and the part memory plays in one’s experience with each of these emotions. Maxine (Ariel Dumas ’05) lies at the forefront of this give-and-take between recollection and re-evaluation. Her struggle to find Dessa’s (Lauren Dobbins Webb ’05) lost daughter Charlotte (Stephanie Gertken ’07) forces her to re-examine her own childhood.

Maxine thus reconnects with her grandmother Zofia (Anne Zander ’07), a Polish immigrant-cum suicidal existentialist. Though we learn that Maxine’s own mother (Evie: Anika Taylor ’06) died when she was a young girl, Evie nevertheless becomes a central character in the form of a ghost that haunts Maxine’s dreams. Yet Zofia repeatedly thwarts Maxine’s efforts to discover her family history. “Some things can’t be found …and what is lost is lost,” she says.

Dessa, on the other hand, must struggle to avoid such thinking. She retains hope that her daughter will be found, never subscribing to the belief that we “learn to lose what cannot be found.” Instead, she grows increasingly closer to Maxine. Dessa’s quest for her lost daughter, one that demands that she not give up hope, becomes inextricably intertwined with Maxine’s own pursuit of her familial history. The two end up flying together during Maxine’s searches, the only time each can share happiness with anyone in the play.

As long as we’re discussing ghosts and mid-flight dialogue, enormous credit must be given to both Cleary and scenic designer Tom Barrett (Barrett is also the Technical Director of the theater). For such a production (in a theater building and humanities quad whose reconstruction I hope to see the beginnings of before I graduate!) to convincingly portray both apparitions and aerial movement in such an effective manner is quite impressive.

Perhaps the uncredited star of the play is the set itself, an amazingly efficient piece that successfully navigates the production through multiple locations, time periods, atmospheric layers and states of consciousness, and all with impressive dexterity. In fact, some of the transitions between and within scenes seem like those one might expect on film: at one point in the production I hastily scribbled “cross-cutting on stage?!?” in my notebook.

Such effects are punctuated and manipulated by music and lighting which never seem employed to extraneous or unimportant ends. Though the musical interludes following certain intense scenes are initially surprising, they do not undercut the preceding emotion. Conversely, music frequently sheds light on faint hope, or the importance of companionship and understanding. Similarly, the lighting is used to both underscore and allow for new perspectives on the emotions the five female actresses experience throughout the play.

While the play, as Cleary explains, deals with “difficult material…deeply influenced by one of the most powerful and enduring Greek myths,” that of Demeter and Persephone, those involved certainly managed to enjoy themselves. Rehearsal of this “intense metaphor on speed,” as Taylor describes it, included Yoga as well as dancing with paper bags over the actresses’ heads. It’s “more fun than an honors project,” Webb assured me. Zander candidly added, “there are lots of hot chicks in this production.”

“The cast, crew, designers and I had to walk into this play with eyes wide open,” Cleary said. “You can't take this material lightly, you must respect the power of the writing, Ellen McLaughlin's courage. I thought it would be really hard for the actors, emotionally. But they just love it, it's all they want to do; rehearse, be together in these difficult scenes, on this gorgeous set. I'm honored by their commitment, and inspired, in an era where our President says ‘just go shopping, go to Disneyland!’ in the face of tragedy, that Macalester students can dwell in difficulty, can explore loss and grief in ways that deepen their responses to the whole world.”

The Macalester community will undoubtedly benefit from sharing in this experience, and I implore all of you to make some time this or next weekend to do so. While “the quirky duck poster is misleading, and the show is really about suicide and child abduction,” Gertken said, Dumas reassured me that “the show will make you want to call your mother.” This alone is reason enough to get out and support the arts at Macalester.
 

“Tongue of a Bird” is playing at the Macalester Theater, in the Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center of Macalester College. Performances are October 8, 9, 15, 16 at 7:30 p.m. and on October 10 and 16 at 2 p.m. Tickets are $7 for general admission; $5 for senior citizens and groups; free for children 12 and under; Macalester and ACTC student rush are free; Macalester and ACTC faculty and staff are free. Please arrive at least 20 minutes prior to curtain to pick up your tickets. The Box Office is open noon to 5p.m. M-F; 651-696-6359.