By Jessica Davis, JTNews Correspondent
Holocaust memories haunt in Intiman Theatre’s world premiere production of Singing Forest, by Craig Lucas, Intiman’s associate artistic director.
“It’s an epic play of personal exploration,” said Intiman’s artistic director, Bartlett Sher, who is directing the play. “As an epic play, it tells a very big story.”
Singing Forest is a three-act play with a mix of comedy and tragedy. The play covers about 30 locations and three time periods. Each actor plays two roles: one in the future and one in the past.
“It’s more complicated than anything I’ve worked on before,” said Sher. “It may be one of the best plays that has happened to me in the past 20 years.”
“Singing Forest, by Craig Lucas, probes issues of sexual orientation and identity while interweaving the tales of three generations of one family from present day New York to Vienna in the 1930s,” said the Intiman’s Stephanie Coen. “The past and present are connected through the eyes of Loë, a fiercely intelligent woman and Holocaust survivor. Tragedy and farce intertwine as the long-buried pain of Hitler’s war against Jews, homosexuals and other ‘undesirables’ is played out with insights into psychotherapy and one family’s quest for redemption.”
“[Loë] is struggling in some ways to recover her memories,” said Sher.
The cast of nine includes several local actors, but also includes Tony Award nominee David Garrison, Jay Goede (previously seen at Intiman in The Dying Gaul by Craig Lucas), Daniel Eric Gold (previously seen at Intiman in Loot, directed by Lucas) and Anne Scurria, a member of Trinity Repertory Company since 1979.
“In the contemporary sections of Singing Forest, the audience meets Loë‘s grandson, Jules Ahmad,” said Coen. “Jules, who is estranged from his family, is a wealthy recluse; he has never met his relatives, or been photographed or publicly identified. He pays a young actor, Gray, to go to therapy for him – he tells Gray his dreams, and has him describe them to the therapists as Gray’s own. When Gray decides that he will pretend to be Jules Ahmad in public, he sets off an explosive chain of events that links all of the characters and leads them one by one to Loë‘s home on Staten Island.”
The July 28 preview performance benefits the Washington State Holocaust Resource Center, which is dedicated to teaching and learning for humanity through study of the Holocaust. This past school year, the Center worked with over 200 teachers across the state reaching 20,000 students.
Intiman will also host the center’s traveling display, “Images of the Holocaust,” which highlights the life experiences of Seattle-area Holocaust survivors through authentic photos and documents detailing their lives. The display will be on view in Intiman’s lobby throughout the run of the show.
Singing Forest is produced in association with Long Wharf Theatre, where the play will be produced in January 2005 under Sher’s direction. The play was originally commissioned by Seattle’s ACT Theatre under the artistic leadership of Gordon Edelstein, and was developed with the assistance of Trinity Repertory Company.
“My nature as an artist is not a religious one,” admits Sher, but this play happens to have some parallels to his Jewish background.
Sher, like Loë, found out as a young adult that he had Jewish ancestry. His father, from Lithuania, was Jewish, but raised the family as Catholics.
“The play presents a good opportunity for my own psychoanalysis,” he said. “It’s a fascinating, complicated intersection for me.”
Singing Forest runs through Aug. 21, at the Intiman Playhouse, located at 201 Mercer St. at the Seattle Center. Tickets are $10-$46. Visit www.intiman.org or call 206-269-1900 for tickets. The July 28 WSHERC benefit begins at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a panel discussion. Visit www.wsherc.org or call 206-441-5747 for further information.