By Corinne Donly
Directed by Sarah Hughes
World Premiere
The Tank
October-November 2017
"Strange and gorgeous...just as Donly’s language attends, through pun and playfulness, to the materiality of language, Hughes’s production invites audiences to engage with the structure of the theater itself."
—Kate Kremer, Culturebot
"...a sublime combination of existential depth and silliness...a springboard for each audience member to discover their own interpretation."
—Ran Xia, Theatre is Easy
Read an interview with Corinne and Sarah by Jerry Lieblich of Culturebot, and more reviews from OnStage Blog and StageBuddy.
With Will Dagger, Claire Fort, Lanxing Fu, Lucy Kaminsky, Connor James Sheridan, Tanyamaria, and Dara Swisher
Co-Producer Bailey Williams
Sound Designer Johnny Gasper
Set & Costume Designer Àsta Bennie Hostetter
Associate Set & Costume Designer Annie Hoeg
Lighting Designer Alejandro Fajardo
Assistant Lighting Designer Vicki Bain
Stage Manager Dara Swisher
Assistant Director Liza Couser
An adaptation of Hieronymus Bosch's 15th century triptych "The Garden of Earthly Delights," Wood Calls Out to Wood is a painting presented as a play, a landscape turned into a soundscape. Written in language that is both precise and deeply silly, the play experiments with the possibilities of combination--of single syllables combining to make words and single people combining to make couples. At first, the audience encounters it as they would a picture hanging on a distant wall, in large swaths of color and pattern. When taking a closer look, however, strange Boschian beings begin to emerge: Two horses in a neigh-scent relationship, a vacant treehouse in need of a tenant, and a human with a grape for a head.
This world premiere production of Wood Calls Out to Wood was presented at The Tank in October-November 2017. A workshop production of the play was presented as part of the Brooklyn College Weasel Festival hosted by The Public Theater, directed by Polly Noonan with design by Sophia Leewah, Heather Konish, Karim Rivera-Rosado, Jon DeGaetano, and Megan Culley, performances by Marisela Grajeda Gonzalez, Connor James Sheridan, Tanyamaria, Trevon Chambers, Will Dagger, Johnathan Dougan, Kevin Koval, Dana Chavez and Emily Kaplan, and stage management by Patrick McDonnell.
Photos by Sasha Arutyunova.