HWY Rachel: A non-traditional performance experiment
Elsewhere Artist Collective hosts New York troupe's experimental theatre
Sue Edelberg
Issue date: 8/29/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
After having to wait outside in downtown Greensboro for visiting troupe, HWY Rachel's, moving performance piece to start, a very animated woman leapt from inside the door to Elsewhere Artist Collective, clad in a yellow vintage dress and holding a fake bottle of gin in her hand. "Come on in, I'm not even kidding, come on in! We've got the seal of approval!" this character shouted. She personally ushered in and addressed each person in the audience- a group of 15 to 20 people- telling participants how ravishing and beautiful they all were.
Everyone was encouraged to come and meet this lady's "husband," another woman dressed in a white vintage dress, complete with two pairs of glasses covering her eyes and goggles over her hat, clutching a stuffed animal.
"Damnit, you're all here," 'he' turned to his wife, "Now tell them why they came on a very important day." Apparently, participants were going to be looking for the odd couple's missing daughter. Then the journey began.
The first stop came to two of the performers in strange, puffy pajama outfits pretending to kiss underneath a little cubby hideout with clanking sounds and strange underwater-like lighting. "Look at these things! Do you think this is famous?" the wife asked the audience, coming across as quite random. Eerie-sad oldies music played from a boom box. From here the couple led the audience through various exhibitions that were described as "episodic" by performer Annie Levy.
Audience members witnessed a mock puppet show, a librarian-like woman reading blurbs from an animal book and a Greensboro Massacre flier, a snooty-girl mock phone conversation in a great northern accent, and a wedding from behind a picture frame. Once participants "found" the missing child, she began talking to us in philosophically dreamy poetic lines, "If I could choose between the present and the future, I'd choose the past."
The seven ladies in the HWY Rachel group came down from New York to do a residency in Greensboro's Elsewhere Artist Collective on Elm St. from Aug. 11 until the date of the performance, Aug. 25. A newly formed troupe, the group had never done a piece together, and didn't do any planning for the performance until they arrived in Greensboro. The group is non-hierarchal so the piece was an experiment in collaboration: in directing, writing, acting, and working together with seven women all on the same level in production.
Everyone was encouraged to come and meet this lady's "husband," another woman dressed in a white vintage dress, complete with two pairs of glasses covering her eyes and goggles over her hat, clutching a stuffed animal.
"Damnit, you're all here," 'he' turned to his wife, "Now tell them why they came on a very important day." Apparently, participants were going to be looking for the odd couple's missing daughter. Then the journey began.
The first stop came to two of the performers in strange, puffy pajama outfits pretending to kiss underneath a little cubby hideout with clanking sounds and strange underwater-like lighting. "Look at these things! Do you think this is famous?" the wife asked the audience, coming across as quite random. Eerie-sad oldies music played from a boom box. From here the couple led the audience through various exhibitions that were described as "episodic" by performer Annie Levy.
Audience members witnessed a mock puppet show, a librarian-like woman reading blurbs from an animal book and a Greensboro Massacre flier, a snooty-girl mock phone conversation in a great northern accent, and a wedding from behind a picture frame. Once participants "found" the missing child, she began talking to us in philosophically dreamy poetic lines, "If I could choose between the present and the future, I'd choose the past."
The seven ladies in the HWY Rachel group came down from New York to do a residency in Greensboro's Elsewhere Artist Collective on Elm St. from Aug. 11 until the date of the performance, Aug. 25. A newly formed troupe, the group had never done a piece together, and didn't do any planning for the performance until they arrived in Greensboro. The group is non-hierarchal so the piece was an experiment in collaboration: in directing, writing, acting, and working together with seven women all on the same level in production.
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