Circle Theater Festival, produced by RJ Theatre Co. and The Actor Launchpad, is now presenting a new play by writer Constance Lake, showing at AMT Theater, 354 West 45th Street.
Lodestone unwinds the desire of two unsuspecting lovers caught in a living zoetrope. The experimental play, abridged from a raucous original script, stages its tale inside a set that moves and dances, breaths and sounds, evoking and mirroring the character's experiences and possible trajectories. A woman is married, but unsure who her groom is until a delivery man shows up. Their wedding gifts are a series of masks that bring them deeper into a cosmic scrapbook: the ceremony just the beginning. Masked advisors, a bardic bird, and all-seeing eyes stop in to collude with the confused couple enduring their own downfall. The perils of grief are presented to a cosmic pantheon while the modern family elucidates its silent agreements. Inspired by the work of August Strindberg, Andrey Tarkovsky, Derek Jarman, and Joan Jonas, Lodestone weaves over the boundaries of art, play, theater, and rote human communication to invigorate the way we see and perceive a story of love, confrontation, and psychic exploration.
With direction by Blake Habermann, a director and company member of the Broken Box Mime Theater, the play is pushed to novel bounds of physical theater and metaphoric simplicity. Stunning choreographic work by Hussein Smko creates complex scenes where movement speaks the language we sometimes lose. Starring actors are Gabe Pages (stage credits include Best Foreign, Dirt, Dracula), Natalie Austin (Crimes of the Heart), Ati Oppelt (Romeo & Juliet at Frank Shiner Theater), and Jeanette Delaney (dir. of Nebraska, a new play). Movement actors sustain the ongoing reorientation of the set and narrative kaleidoscope: moving lights, taking the place of core actors as they transform in other roles, and working arduously with set pieces. Julianne Mason, an experienced producer and sound designer, crafted the elegant and dynamic soundscape that moves from storm to sacred. Alessandra Cronin (of The New York NeoFuturists) brings images to life with an original video backdrop in tandem with the play's subtle theme of modern technological interdependency.
The Circle Theater Festival is committed to presenting raw theater at its most elemental, a welcome complement to Broadway sheen. It is organized in part by RJ Theater company. Founded in London in December of 2020, The RJ Theatre Company is dedicated to producing new work that is intimate and honest. The theater they create is deeply real; focusing on moments that define us as humans in evolution and in relationship.
All performances of Lodestone will run at the AMT Theater, three Sundays in September (the 7th, 14th, and 21st) and October 19. The AMT Theater is recently remodeled with new stage lights and sound, comfortable 99-person seating, and a film-grade projection screen. The theater was built originally in 1915 as an electrical substation and was notably used as an illegal theater space for many years until it was established as the 45th Street Theater in the early 2000s.
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