Next Theater Company’s newest production, “The Long Christmas Ride Home” by Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel, is the sum of very obscure parts.
At Tuesday’s preview lecture at the Evanston Public Library, 1703 Orrington Ave., audience members learned what Thornton Wilder, Bunraku puppetry, Japanese woodblock prints and celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ have in common.
The show, opening Nov. 14 at Noyes Cultural Arts Center, 927 Noyes St., incorporates all these elements. It is the Midwest premier of Vogel’s newest work. It is the story of a family’s ride to and from the grandparents’ house to celebrate Christmas.
Production Dramaturg Sarah Gubbins, whose job is translating the meaning of the text into a visual production, gave the lecture to explain the production process and give audience members a closer look at Vogel’s own interpretation of her writing, beginning with a reading of the playwright’s notes on the piece.
The work is unconventional – a 75-minute stream of action from the characters and storytelling from the narrators, with no intermission.
“Her plays deal with very daring subject matter,” Gubbins said. “She often employs a narrator who seeks out the audience. She does not in any way attempt to cut up her play into scenes, and the lights are never going to go down.”
For this piece, the playwright asks the production team in the beginning of the script to read Thornton Wilder’s one-acts. They inspired aspects of her play such as the minimalism of the set and the attitude that what the audience sees should only be a frame for them to form ideas.
Gubbins said she has never seen another performance of the work, so many of the artistic elements were left up to the Next production team.
“When you don’t have a lot of scenic elements, you demand a lot from your costumes,” Gubbins said. “You rely on them to tell you who you are, where you are. And on top of that, you have a puppet.”
There are several Japanese influences in the construction of the play, such as Bunraku puppetry. Using almost life-size puppets manipulated by rods, actors rather than professional puppeteers portray the children in the story.
Managing director John Collins said the actors have been working on the puppetry since August.
“We are able to produce certain works because audiences in Evanston are so open and eager for that challenge,” said Collins of the play’s nontraditional quality.
Diane Johnson, an 80-year-old Evanston resident, attended the lecture with her husband. They said they needed to come to the show with a better understanding of Vogel’s work.
“It sounded like a different kind of play, and we thought we needed a little instruction,” Johnson said. “I think when you come prepared, you get more out of it.”
Reach Kristyn Schiavone at [email protected].
