Photo by Dan Norman
I saw Wonderlust Productions’ A Star Full of Skies: The Values Play Experience at the Frey Theater at St. Catherine University in St. Paul. The production is a reimagining of Euripides’ The Bacchae, built from stories gathered from more than 300 people across Minnesota. It explores political division, freedom, order and community through an interactive format in which the audience helps determine which scenes are performed. Rather than simply watching the characters debate questions of democracy, the audience becomes part of the process of making collective choices.
I came to the play wanting to see a more visual, staged version of an idea that had already been interesting me. After reading Patrick House’s Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness, a book that examines consciousness through multiple perspectives rather than trying to give one definitive explanation, I became fascinated by the possibility of looking at something in different ways. I went into the play thinking about perspective as something individual—how each person might experience or understand the same thing differently. But the play approached perspective differently. Instead of exploring each audience member’s individual point of view, it turned our choices into a collective decision.
We received laminated sheets with roughly 15 different scenes or scenarios and were repeatedly asked to vote on what would happen next. The actors guided us through the process, which was helpful because this was not a conventional play where I could simply sit back and watch the story unfold. Sometimes the voting was straightforward; other times, when there wasn't a clear choice, the actors combined multiple scenes. We shouted out our selections, which gave the experience a genuine feeling of autonomy but could also become chaotic.
That sense of autonomy became the most interesting part of the experience for me. During the first half, I became accustomed to having my choice immediately affect what happened onstage. Then the second half changed the rules. We could put away our laminated sheets, and instead of immediately determining what scene came next, our choices were being analyzed. I almost expected the voting to continue. The play had established one relationship with its audience and then changed it.
In that sense, the production partly answered what I had been hoping to see. Multiple perspectives weren't just discussed; they were physically enacted through different scenes and through the audience's participation. Yet it also didn't quite give me the single visual concept I had imagined. The many possible scenes meant that I became much more familiar with some characters and storylines than others, and at times I felt disoriented about how everything fit together.
The production's minimal set—a tree and blocks—left much of the setting to our imagination. The largely tan costumes created a visual unity among the characters, while occasional jackets and other added garments helped distinguish them. The use of armor and bulletproof vests also gave a physical presence to the play's themes of conflict, shame, rage and power.
I appreciated that the actors were willing to guide us through an unfamiliar format, and I liked experiencing a play in which the audience had an unusual amount of influence. I went in expecting something closer to different perspectives on one central story. Instead, I encountered a fragmented, interactive experience that asked me to participate in building the story itself. It didn't completely give me the visual version of multiple perspectives I had imagined, but it did make me think more deeply about what happens when we stop looking for one version of a story and start considering the many ways it can be understood.
