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Written by Andra Coberly
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Friday, 31 August 2007 |
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 There are silks and tassels everywhere. Actors sachet by, floating just a bit on the airy things that hang from their bodies. Their make-up is dark and matte—though not quite dark enough, laments the make-up artist.
It’s hard not to smile at them, hypnotized by their fluid movements and their animation and their stories.
Days before opening night of OpenStage Theater’s first production of the season, The Arabian Nights, the Lincoln Center’s Mini Theater is busy with the normal to-do of rehearsals. Props are missing, actors are scattered and directions are being given everywhere—all with the flair and dramatics that only a group of actors can arose. But then the lights go out and the stories begin.
The Arabian Nights, an evocative and provocative adaptation of The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, was written by Tony Award-winning Mary Zimmerman. The tale—and the tales within the tale, and the tales within the tales within the tale—are beautiful, witty and stylish, ancient yet surprisingly modern, smart and sexy.
“It runs the gamut of human experience,” director Peter Anthony said. “There is an exotic quality to it but within that there is an evocative reality.”
OpenStage’s large cast—12 actors playing 45 roles—takes on the story of Scheherazade, who tells a series of stories to her maniacal husband, a king who murders his wives. To keep King Shahryar from killing her and her sister, Scheherazade tantalizes him with tales of love and lust, moral tales and absolute absurdity.
Anthony—playing off Zimmerman’s cues—brings the audience into the storytelling. The stage, large and layered, expands out into the house and rows of seats have been placed almost on top of the stage, creating a theater-in-the-round experience.
“There is this beautiful theatricality to the story with musicians and singing and dancing,” Anthony said.
The music that weaves through the journey was composed by OpenStage’s own Mary Zimmerman (not related to the playwright), who becomes a haunting troubadour throughout the play, along with an array of exotic instrumentation.
It was the contemporary connection that primarily attracted OpenStage to the script. In a production where East meets West, the story seems to acutely reverberate with the modern world. The stories give audiences a view of a very different Middle East, one that Anthony hopes they will embrace.
“There is a universality, a connection that will allow people to recognize that the West is richer for embracing the East,” Anthony said.
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'The Arabian Nights'
Opens Saturday, Sept. 1.
8 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays through Sept. 29
2 p.m., Sundays, Sept 16-23
7:30 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 27
Lincoln Center Mini Theater
417 W. Magnolia St., Fort Collins
Call 221.6730 or go online to:
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