Elephant's Graveyard

Jorge Luis Morejon (Shaman).  Spider Dance Rehearsal, Mondavi Studio, UC Davis, Californina

Jorge Luis Morejon (Shaman) and Bella Merlin (Eve).

Rehearsal, UClub, UC Davis, Fall 2009. Photo:Jade McCutcheon.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Truly unforgettable
New UCD drama deftly addresses the complex issues that concern aging

By Bev Sykes
Enterprise Drama Critic
.
.There's much to like about 'The Elephant's Graveyard,' written and directed by Jade McCutcheon, which continues through Sunday at the UC Davis Mondavi Center's Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.
.The play boasts a simple yet elegantly sweeping set by renowned designer John Iacovelli; lighting by internationally recognized designer Thomas Munn; an on-stage orchestra, under the baton of Garrett Ian Shatzer, to perform the music composed by Laurie San Martin; costumes by Maggie Morgan; and choreography by Kerry Mehling.
.McCutcheon's sensitive script concerns an aging woman and her scientist daughter, who is trying to find a cure for death, yet can't take time to visit her dying mother.
.Each of the seven professional and nonprofessional actors is wonderful; they're joined by six older women from the Davis community, with no acting experience whatsoever, whose powerful contribution just about steals the show.
.
And delivered more than a few in tears during the opening night performance.
Eve (Bella Merlin) is a career-driven scientist working for the Never Die Institute on synthetic alternatives to aging and death. She deals with inter-staff rivalry with her partner Steve (Matt Sullivan), who is involved with stem cell research. Eve is so immersed in her work - and excited about her discoveries - that she neglects her aging mother, Esme (Claudia Marie Maupin), whom she has placed in 'one of the more prestigious nursing homes.'
.Eve visits every few weeks, when her busy schedule allows.
.Esme is lonely and confused: more concerned about whether she's getting the right medication, and whether the staff has stolen one of her old sweaters, than about lengthening her life.
.
Emma (Anne Reeder) is the granddaughter Esme raised after the death of the girl's parents. She visits Esme regularly and tries to make Eve understand how precious her time is with her mother.
.Merlin does a fine job as a harried, driven, stress-filled woman who tries to do too much while neglecting the one thing that should be most important to her. Reeder gives a lovely, sensitive portrayal of a young woman who successfully balances career - she's an architect - with love and concern for her grandmother.
.But our attention is riveted on Esme, and Maupin gives her total heart and soul: We understand her bouts of depression, her moments of confusion and fear, and her delight over the time she spends with her daughter. Ultimately, we learn the most from Esme.
.
The voice of Esme's 'soul' is provided by the marvelous Australian singer Kim Deacon, who sings the words that reveal Esme's fears:

.'Is it must my imagination,
Or am I finding it hard to breathe?
It seems each step I take these days
There's a wobble in my knees...'
.Each of the other actors takes on several roles, from nursing home attendants and pedestrians to waiters. Each is excellent, but Jorge Morejón is head and shoulders above the rest: His principal character is a shaman who provides comfort to Eve at her most frenzied period, when he takes her pain from her and internalizes it.
.Morejón gives an intensity to his performance, and his dances are breathtaking: particularly the 'spider dance,' done on a ladder that is lowered from the ceiling while Esme's soul expresses her feelings about death:
.'The web might be a relief,
Just to give in and get caught.'
.As for the 'elders,' for a group of women in their later years who never before appeared on stage, we couldn't ask for better.
.
They quite realistically portray conditions in a nursing home, and their final scene brought several audience members to tears.
.This play needs to be seen by everyone with aging parents, and everyone who intends to grow old (which would be all of us). It deals sensitively but realistically with the experiences of aging in this country, and how our culture deals with it, and concludes with an uplifting message for everyone.
.
The production is everything that McCutcheon intended: 'a journey where it's a bit of magic, a bit of music, a bit of art, a bit of dance and the issues and a story that ties it together.'
Don't miss this one. You won't be disappointed.
.
LINK: http://criticontheloose.blogspot.com/2009/10/elephants-graveyard-review.html

Elephant's Graveyard (preview)

THURSDAY OCTOBER 22, 2009 THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE

Age-old issue

Carefully developed play addresses quality-of-life issues for older people
By Bev Sykes
ENTERPRISE DRAMA CRITIC

Elephants are amazing animals.
.
They’re highly intelligent and live in wonderfully structured societies. They understand that it takes a village to raise a child. They support each other throughout their lives. They go into deep depressions, if isolated in zoos without companions.
.
And there’s a reverence about them, when it comes to the end of life.
Elephants know when they’re dying. They leave the herd and walk ceremoniously to the graveyard that contains all their ancestors, and they lie down in the bones of those who have gone before them.
.
When an elephant dies, the other members of the herd gather around it: They cover the elephant up, and they hang around it for days, just to be close.
.
This majestic creature’s respect for age and dying was the inspiration for a play called “The Elephant’s Graveyard,” written and directed by Jade McCutcheon, which opens Friday and continues through Nov. 1 at the Mondavi Center’s Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.
.
The U.S. population age 65 and over is expected to double in size within the next 25 years. By 2030, almost one out of five Americans — some 72 million people — will be 65 years or older. The age group 85 and older is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.
.
It’s time to give some serious thought about the quality of life for older Americans.
.
McCutcheon actually has been working on this piece for a very long time. When I met with her in April, she had begun shaping the script and had started casting the show. The story concerns Eve, a scientist working for the “Never Die Institute,” who is developing technology designed to prolong life and ultimately allow us all to live forever. Eve’s mother, Esme, a woman in her 80s, is integral to this narrative: Eve has placed Esme in a nursing home and never finds the time to visit.
.
McCutcheon sought her Esme among the older women of the Davis community. She was looking for “someone who is able to move across the stage without feeling terrified.” She also needed “someone the audience could care about.”
.
When we parted company that day back in April, McCutcheon was about to meet with Donna Sachs, who leads a discussion group for senior citizens. McCutcheon hoped to find her Esme among the women in Sachs’ group.
.
Sachs, a career psychologist interested in personal development in the later years, started her group in 2003.
.
“I wanted to share some ideas and literature in a seminar,” she said, “so I invited people to come for a few times and just talk together in a group.”
.

After the first few sessions, several people were eager to continue, and the group now has continued for more than five years. It has 11 participants; when they heard the plans for McCutcheon’s play, eight women expressed interest.
.
McCutcheon ended up with more than she bargained for, when Claudia Marie became her Esme. Marie wasn’t terrified to walk across the stage. She also was willing to learn lines, although she had no stage experience, beyond having watched her parents do some theater work when she was a young child.
.
McCutcheon then cast five other members of the group — Nancy Jungerman, Lois Grau, Ruth Hall, Doris Beresford and Sachs herself — to be Esme’s friends in the nursing home. Each would have a line or two of dialogue, and all would participate in some of the dancing.
.
Stage manager Reed Martin was “really concerned” about working with older women who had no stage experience, but he was pleasantly surprised. “They’re really a great group of people,” he said. “And because of how involved they are, they’re very willing to do things for the show. They’re really enthusiastic about it.”
.
“It’s great having members of the community involved,” added Bella Merlin, an acting professor who plays the part of Eve. “It has been absolutely fantastic working with them. They’re delightful. Claudia is so open and accessible, and she’s so playful as an actress. They all have super energy.”
.
In September, I went to visit the “elders” at work with their choreographer, Kerry Mehling. I entered a room to find a group of women, sitting in a semi-circle, looking old, tired and depressed. Mehling was giving them movements to do with their hands, and each movement seemed to be almost too much of an effort.
.
But when the exercise concluded, their heads came up and the years melted away. They sparkled with delight while talking about their backgrounds, and their excitement at being involved with this play.
.
This vibrant group of women was the visual representation of all that McCutcheon wished to convey in her play: how the quality of life can be affected by our ability to remain intellectually challenged, lively and active, rather than stuck in a nursing home, at the mercy of the staff, hoping that someone will visit. Some day.
.
“I want this to be a journey where it’s a bit of magic, a bit of music, a bit of art, a bit of dance and the issues, and a story that ties it together,” McCutcheon said. “It’s just a platform. This is a voyage of discovery for Eve. Science might be able to create a bio-body, but what are we about life?
.
“We live and die; that’s a given. But love can make a difference. This busy, busy life about career, career, career, when you have to cut off that aspect of self...
.
“It’s worth asking everybody: Is that it?”
.
“This play throws up all sorts of issues,” Merlin said. “We’ll make people go away and think about lots of things. My character is a nanotechnologist, so she believes that we can live forever: that there’s enough science out there, and enough investigation happening, that it’s only a matter of years before we have the capacity to ensure that we never age. We’ll be able to put tiny robots in our systems, which will constantly regenerate the degenerating.”
.
AGE: The play’s composer has come from Australia

“It’s absolutely strange and exciting,” Merlin continued, “and Eve is up against the fact that her mom is dying, and she doesn’t want her mom to die.
.
Can she come up with this discovery before her mom dies?” But Eve misses the point: that her mother is at peace with the approaching end of her life, and is ready to die. Merlin warmed to the subject.
.
“She says lines to the effect of ‘What would I do for another 70 years in this body? Why would I want to?’ My character can’t understand that. Surely everybody wants to live forever. Then my character has an epiphany, and thinks maybe she’s got it all wrong. Maybe there’s a natural flow and order to things.”
.
Kim Deacon has flown in from Australia, to sing the role of Esme’s “soul.” “I worked with Jade about 18 years ago, in a play that we devised called ‘The Last Room,’ ” the singer explained. “It’s a very beautiful piece that combined some text from Tennessee Williams and the surrealist playwright Arabella; I also sang in that play. We enjoyed the process of working together very much.
.
“We always had in our minds to work together again, so I’ve kept up with her over the years.”
When McCutcheon was in Australia at Christmas, visiting family, she talked with Deacon about flying to the States to perform in “The Elephant’s Graveyard.” Deacon, who had been discussing the possibility of such a project with Mc-Cutcheon for a long time, was happy to comply.
.
Garrett Ian Shatzer, who composed the songs for the production, happened to be in Australia this summer, while McCutcheon was at home again to see her own aging mother. They met with Deacon at that time, to go over the music.
.
“When I heard Garrett’s music, I thought it was fantastic,” Deacon said. “Every song is beautiful.”
.
“Different things in this play will appeal to different people,” Merlin said. “Some will absolutely love the music, some will get involved in the science, and some will get very involved in the story about what to do when our parents get older.
.
“It has stirred up a lot of stuff for me, because my parents are in their 70s. They’re in the UK; I’m here in the USA. They’re fit at the moment. What happens when they’re not?”
.
As I watched the relationship between Esme and her daughter during the two rehearsals I attended, and listened to Deacon give voice to Esme’s soul, and watched the evolution in the lives of Esme’s friends in the nursing home, I drove home certain that people seeing this play will leave the theater with a lot of things to think about.
.
And, if they still have living parents, a lot of them will feel like calling Mom or Dad.

Elephant's Graveyard (preview)

The California Aggie News. Sideshow Physical Theatre presents Elephant's Graveyard New play at the Vanderhoef Studio Theater adds perspective Written by Vanna Lee Staff Writer Published on Oct 22, 2009 Growing old is often a daunting task that can leave anyone bewildered, perplexed and perhaps, at some point, abandoned in a depressingly isolated nursing home. And if you don't believe it, check out Sideshow Physical Theatre's latest play, Elephant's Graveyard.

 The play, written and directed by Australian scholar Jade Rosina McCutcheon, delves deeply into the lives of two women - Esme (a lonely mother and grandmother) and Eve (her busy and career-obsessed daughter). . The play starts out in gloom as Esme desperately pleads Eve for the least bit of love and attention. Esme's raw stress of emotions and desire for love is carried out by the songs of her soul - yes, her soul - sung by Australian singer and actress Kim Deacon. . On the surface, the play may seem to reflect the issues of aging and abandonment, but it also directs the limelight onto real social issues that we rarely think about today. 

  "It's not so much the fear of old age," McCutcheon said, "But in 2030, we'll have more than 30 million people over 65 years of age, and we don't have the utility to handle that." . McCutcheon said at the same time, scientists are still working on solutions. "Nursing homes may be the popular choice, but I don't think it's a very compassionate thing to do, and I don't think it's the way to go to be abandoned by your family," McCutcheon said. . By exposing the public to the issues presented in this play, she said that she hopes Elephant's Graveyard will be something for everybody to carefully consider, no matter what age.

 The cast's intimate performance is earnest yet humorous at the same time, permitting us to question the realities of elderly life in a nursing home. Where will our children be when we die? What will happen to our souls? What is the importance of religion, or having our families nearby? . Because really, as cliché as it may sound, what exactly is the point of living life without love, knowing that the inevitable outcome of death is awaiting us? Bella Merlin is an actress trained in the UK and Russia. She plays Eve in Elephant's Graveyard.

 "We've all been children, and we've all had parents," Merlin said. "We know what's coming." . There are also many moments of ridiculousness in this poignant mother-and-daughter story that explore the complex emotions involved in one's passing of age. In one scene, a deeply unsettling yet oddly entertaining dance depicts the darkness of life in a nursing home where a team of pharmacists and nurses are seen as villains in the eyes of the elders. . "I think it's impossible for the play to not have [a] dark comedy effect," McCutcheon said. "Sometimes, we just have to laugh at these things because we feel so powerless."

 The play, which combines with artistic tapestry all the different styles of theatre - layering music, dance, realism and costume - is what Merlin describes as "epic." The impressive creative team ranges from Emmy Award-winning lighting designer Thomas Munn to costume designer Maggie Morgan, who has worked with costumes on well-known sets such as Mona Lisa Smile and Men in Black.

 "The young people working on this are terrific, considerate and talented," said Dorris Beresford, who plays one of the many elders. "That being said, I'd be happy to turn the world over to them." Elephant's Graveyard, full of great artists and actors, will premiere its first show Saturday, Oct. 23 at the Mondavi Studio Theatre. Don't forget to take your friends, parents or elders - as they will be sure to laugh and cry. . More information about the show can be found at theelephantsgraveyard.com. VANNA LE can be reached at arts@theaggie.org.

Elephant's Graveyard (preview)

 THURSDAY OCTOBER 22, 2009 THE DAVIS ENTERPRISE

Age-old issue

Carefully developed play addresses quality-of-life issues for older people
By Bev Sykes
ENTERPRISE DRAMA CRITIC
Elephants are amazing animals.
They’re highly intelligent and live in wonderfully structured societies. They understand that it takes a village to raise a child. They support each other throughout their lives. They go into deep depressions, if isolated in zoos without companions.
And there’s a reverence about them, when it comes to the end of life.
Elephants know when they’re dying. They leave the herd and walk ceremoniously to the graveyard that contains all their ancestors, and they lie down in the bones of those who have gone before them.
When an elephant dies, the other members of the herd gather around it: They cover the elephant up, and they hang around it for days, just to be close.
This majestic creature’s respect for age and dying was the inspiration for a play called “The Elephant’s Graveyard,” written and directed by Jade McCutcheon, which opens Friday and continues through Nov. 1 at the Mondavi Center’s Larry and Rosalie Vanderhoef Studio Theatre.
The U.S. population age 65 and over is expected to double in size within the next 25 years. By 2030, almost one out of five Americans — some 72 million people — will be 65 years or older. The age group 85 and older is the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population.
It’s time to give some serious thought about the quality of life for older Americans.
McCutcheon actually has been working on this piece for a very long time. When I met with her in April, she had begun shaping the script and had started casting the show. The story concerns Eve, a scientist working for the “Never Die Institute,” who is developing technology designed to prolong life and ultimately allow us all to live forever. Eve’s mother, Esme, a woman in her 80s, is integral to this narrative: Eve has placed Esme in a nursing home and never finds the time to visit.
McCutcheon sought her Esme among the older women of the Davis community. She was looking for “someone who is able to move across the stage without feeling terrified.” She also needed “someone the audience could care about.”
When we parted company that day back in April, McCutcheon was about to meet with Donna Sachs, who leads a discussion group for senior citizens. McCutcheon hoped to find her Esme among the women in Sachs’ group.
Sachs, a career psychologist interested in personal development in the later years, started her group in 2003.
“I wanted to share some ideas and literature in a seminar,” she said, “so I invited people to come for a few times and just talk together in a group.”
After the first few sessions, several people were eager to continue, and the group now has continued for more than five years. It has 11 participants; when they heard the plans for McCutcheon’s play, eight women expressed interest.
McCutcheon ended up with more than she bargained for, when Claudia Marie became her Esme. Marie wasn’t terrified to walk across the stage. She also was willing to learn lines, although she had no stage experience, beyond having watched her parents do some theater work when she was a young child.
McCutcheon then cast five other members of the group — Nancy Jungerman, Lois Grau, Ruth Hall, Doris Beresford and Sachs herself — to be Esme’s friends in the nursing home. Each would have a line or two of dialogue, and all would participate in some of the dancing.
Stage manager Reed Martin was “really concerned” about working with older women who had no stage experience, but he was pleasantly surprised. “They’re really a great group of people,” he said. “And because of how involved they are, they’re very willing to do things for the show. They’re really enthusiastic about it.”
“It’s great having members of the community involved,” added Bella Merlin, an acting professor who plays the part of Eve. “It has been absolutely fantastic working with them. They’re delightful. Claudia is so open and accessible, and she’s so playful as an actress. They all have super energy.”
In September, I went to visit the “elders” at work with their choreographer, Kerry Mehling. I entered a room to find a group of women, sitting in a semi-circle, looking old, tired and depressed. Mehling was giving them movements to do with their hands, and each movement seemed to be almost too much of an effort.
But when the exercise concluded, their heads came up and the years melted away. They sparkled with delight while talking about their backgrounds, and their excitement at being involved with this play.
This vibrant group of women was the visual representation of all that McCutcheon wished to convey in her play: how the quality of life can be affected by our ability to remain intellectually challenged, lively and active, rather than stuck in a nursing home, at the mercy of the staff, hoping that someone will visit. Some day.
“I want this to be a journey where it’s a bit of magic, a bit of music, a bit of art, a bit of dance and the issues, and a story that ties it together,” McCutcheon said. “It’s just a platform. This is a voyage of discovery for Eve. Science might be able to create a bio-body, but what are we about life?
“We live and die; that’s a given. But love can make a difference. This busy, busy life about career, career, career, when you have to cut off that aspect of self...
“It’s worth asking everybody: Is that it?”
“This play throws up all sorts of issues,” Merlin said. “We’ll make people go away and think about lots of things. My character is a nanotechnologist, so she believes that we can live forever: that there’s enough science out there, and enough investigation happening, that it’s only a matter of years before we have the capacity to ensure that we never age. We’ll be able to put tiny robots in our systems, which will constantly regenerate the degenerating.”
AGE: The play’s composer has come from Australia
“It’s absolutely strange and exciting,” Merlin continued, “and Eve is up against the fact that her mom is dying, and she doesn’t want her mom to die.
Can she come up with this discovery before her mom dies?” But Eve misses the point: that her mother is at peace with the approaching end of her life, and is ready to die. Merlin warmed to the subject.
“She says lines to the effect of ‘What would I do for another 70 years in this body? Why would I want to?’ My character can’t understand that. Surely everybody wants to live forever. Then my character has an epiphany, and thinks maybe she’s got it all wrong. Maybe there’s a natural flow and order to things.”
Kim Deacon has flown in from Australia, to sing the role of Esme’s “soul.” “I worked with Jade about 18 years ago, in a play that we devised called ‘The Last Room,’ ” the singer explained. “It’s a very beautiful piece that combined some text from Tennessee Williams and the surrealist playwright Arabella; I also sang in that play. We enjoyed the process of working together very much.
“We always had in our minds to work together again, so I’ve kept up with her over the years.”
When McCutcheon was in Australia at Christmas, visiting family, she talked with Deacon about flying to the States to perform in “The Elephant’s Graveyard.” Deacon, who had been discussing the possibility of such a project with Mc-Cutcheon for a long time, was happy to comply.
Garrett Ian Shatzer, who composed the songs for the production, happened to be in Australia this summer, while McCutcheon was at home again to see her own aging mother. They met with Deacon at that time, to go over the music.
“When I heard Garrett’s music, I thought it was fantastic,” Deacon said. “Every song is beautiful.”
“Different things in this play will appeal to different people,” Merlin said. “Some will absolutely love the music, some will get involved in the science, and some will get very involved in the story about what to do when our parents get older.
“It has stirred up a lot of stuff for me, because my parents are in their 70s. They’re in the UK; I’m here in the USA. They’re fit at the moment. What happens when they’re not?”
As I watched the relationship between Esme and her daughter during the two rehearsals I attended, and listened to Deacon give voice to Esme’s soul, and watched the evolution in the lives of Esme’s friends in the nursing home, I drove home certain that people seeing this play will leave the theater with a lot of things to think about.
And, if they still have living parents, a lot of them will feel like calling Mom or Dad.