Lars Jan's Newest Theater Work Weaves Generational Threads Of Cultural Upheaval

The White Album is a multifaceted theater work based on Joan Didion's seminal essay about California's shifting cultural landscape of the late 1960s. In this piece, directed by Lars Jan, the Obie-winning Mia Barron delivers the essay in its entirety while two performance works simultaneously unfold on stage. Two separate audiences-one is the traditional audience seated in the theater; the other is a smaller selected group of approximately 20 on stage, intimate, and mobile. Both audiences experience the works simultaneously but from different vantage points. The smaller audience eventually becomes part of a contemporary house party, representing a microcosm of the promise, tumult, and violence of the era traced in Didion's text.

Party-goers on stage visually underscore stark similarities in cultural dynamics between 1968 and now, invoking themes of protest, race, and generational divide. The low-slung set evokes a Palm Springs mid-century home, with sliding glass doors that alternately releases or contains the activity on stage. As the "party" gathers steam and becomes unhinged, a tragic and tense climax forces guests and audience members to consider the double-edged meaning of the essay's famous opening line: "We tell ourselves stories in order to live."

The White Album
By Joan Didion
Created by Lars Jan / Early Morning Opera

Architectural design by P-A-T-T-E-R-N-S Architecture
Lighting design by Andrew Schneider and Chu-hsuan Chang
Music and sound design by Jonathan Snipes
Choreography by Stephanie Zaletel
Dramaturgy by David Bruin

BAM Harvey Theater (651 Fulton St)
Nov 28-Dec 1 at 7:30pm
Tickets start at $25

Master Class: Separating Sound and Picture
With Lars Jan
Nov 30 at 2pm, Mark Morris Dance Center (3 Lafayette Ave)
Price: $25
For performance folk of all disciplines
Visit BAM.org/master-classes for more information and to register