Single Carrot's ILLUMINOCTEM Celebrates Imagination

Single Carrot Theatre’s latest production, Illuminoctem, is a story told entirely through movement and music, light and shadow. Director Brendan Ragan likens the show to his favorite theatrical form—what he terms “wordless wonders”—but really what he has created is a ballet. As my knowledge of ballet, whether classical or contemporary, is extremely limited, I can say little about the dancers other than to note that some are more in control of their bodies than others are.

What I can critique is the story itself and the extent to which it captured and held my interest. Adapted from The Day Boy and the Night Girl, a fairy tale by the 19^th-century author George MacDonald, Illuminoctem begins with a witch named Watho (Giti Jabaily), who has “wolves living inside her head.” (I quote from the program, which provides an invaluable summary of the action.)

Watho, assisted by a pair of inscrutable “keepers,” rears two children under opposite conditions. The boy, Photogen (Nathan Fulton), is raised only in daylight, while the girl, Nycteris (Alex Lewis), never sees the sun. Eventually they escape from the witch, meet, and fall instantly in love. But to remain with Nycteris, Photogen must confront the terrors of nighttime (ingeniously staged by Ragan and choreographer Sarah Anne Austin using a giant white sheet) … and both must survive Watho’s jealous wrath.

In his director’s notes, Ragan explains his goals for the production. “I want to learn things about my own imagination,” he writes, “and I’ve begun to find that is most easily achieved without the constraints of text.” Likewise, he encourages audience members to allow their imaginations “to veer from the linear course,” “to play with the story [they] see, perceive and experience.”

Ragan and his team of choreographers achieve this in places. (Illuminoctem is divided into four parts, each of which is choreographed by a different person, though I cannot say whether each choreographer brings a unique style of movement to the whole.) I have already mentioned Austin’s vision of Photogen at night; equally fascinating is Marilyn Mullen’s choreography for an early scene titled “Nycteris’ Lesson,” in which the tremendously precise Lewis performs a strange ritual involving a set of cups. Naoko Maeshiba makes nice use of the ensemble (Aldo Pantoja, Jessica Garrett, Nathan A. Cooper, and Genevieve de Mahy) in staging Nycteris’s journey through an ever-shifting landscape, and Kwame Opare creates a haunting sequence in which Watho is “cleansed” by the gentler of her wolves.

Yet if Ragan’s goal was to nudge his audience away from “the constraints of text,” perhaps he should have pushed even further in the direction of abstraction. For the most part the performers’ movements are representational, and despite Ragan’s reservations, the piece features a linear plot that too often left me trying to determine what was “literally” happening. I didn’t always have much success, particularly at crucial moments in the story. It is not at all clear how Nycteris escapes from her dark cell, for example, or why Photogen runs from Nycteris after they fall in love, or how they are able to defeat Watho.

In addition to Lewis, whose face is so expressive she seems to be experiencing everything for the first time, Fulton makes a strong impression—his Photogen initially has the posture of a child, but he grows in stature and strength under the influence of love. Jabaily, clad in a fantastic red wig and a frightful set of claws, is menacing yet vulnerable; the program lists Chelsea Carter as the costume designer, J. Buck Jabaily as a costumer, and Tzveta Kassabova (who is credited with a “special project costume design”), but however the work was split up, the costumes are very effective.

Joey Bromfield’s lighting design is sensational—the opening tableau alone is worth the price of admission—yet his set design, which consists mostly of curious silver strips patched across the ceiling, seems unrelated to the rest of the production and contributes little to the overall effect. Jesse Case’s score is effective in the moment but not very memorable—as I write this I cannot remember a single theme, though I did make a note praising the “lovely rising and falling melody” that ends the show.

Ultimately, I feel this is an appropriate description of my overall response to Illuminoctem—though it has its moments, many of them quite effective as isolated bits of theatre, it has not stayed with me the way other Single Carrot productions have. Perhaps this proves that Ragan and I have fundamentally different tastes in theatre. Perhaps it simply proves that I need to see more ballet.

Illuminoctem is playing at Single Carrot Theatre, located at 120 W. North Avenue in Baltimore, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 PM, and Sundays at 2:30 PM, through December 20^th. The production contains nudity and “adult themes.” Audience members under 18 must be accompanied by a parent or guardian; audience members under 15 will not be admitted. For more information, visit www.singlecarrot.com or call 443-844-9253.