MultiStages
presents
HELL AND HIGH WATER,
or Lessons for When the Sky Falls
Written by Jamuna Yvette Sirker
Directed by Lorca Peress
Hudson Guild Theatre, 441 W. 26th Street (Manhattan)
April 1 – 18, 2010
Production Design JAN HARTLEY
Lighting Design ALEX MOORE
Scenic Design LORCA PERESS
Choreography JENNIFER CHIN
Sound Design JOSH ALLEN
Katrina-Hiroshima Wig Design JOHN DALLAS
Costume and Mask Design ELLIE D’EUSTACHIO
Stage Manager GEOFFREY NIXON
Production Stage Manager DENISE R. ZEILER
Press Representative SCOTTI RHODES PUBLICITY
CAST
Lady Mississippi – Richarda Abrams
Teacher Alice – Anna Lamadrid
Bag L – Joyce Griffen
Actor Eddie – Paul Christian Mischeshin
Nurse Claire – Frances Chewning
Phil – Cary Hite
Katrina-Hiroshima – Frederick Mayer
Restaurant Dave – Russell Jordan
Restaurant Beaux – Ross Degraw
A survivor of Hurricane Katrina, playwright Jamuna Yvette Sirker has conjured up a Greek-tragedy inspired sensibility to tell a handful of tales of the recent American tragedy. The characters presented in HELL AND HIGH WATER run the gamut from the mundane to the mythical, and each serves to focus on a facet, or a face, of disaster.
As the play opens, the day is just another in New Orleans, but some of the characters sense the ominous, birds migrating early, storm warnings, and even visitations from another world. Lady Mississippi, a local celebrity songstress of sorts, comes in singing and happy, but Teacher Alice immediately sees a spirit in the form of Bag L. We are introduced to a slew of locals, slowly, going about their routines, until the storm comes, and the chaos of Katrina-Hiroshima, and the many aspects of Katrina and the aftermath the character represents, takes over to the tune of the Beatles’ Helter Skelter.
At times, the action is hyperbole, focused on what must have been the perception of the “refugees” of the storm, forced to navigate the bureaucracy in the aftermath of the devastation. Sirker’s own notes in the playbill probably describe it best, “…the structure reflects the very nature of my experience; it takes the form of a hurricane.”
Director Peress and the ensemble cast have embraced the hurricane style of the play’s structure, which can at times be unsettling, but is certainly a story that needs to be told, and through the filter of someone who was there, and not just reporting on it.
- Kessa De Santis -