{"id":203,"date":"2017-11-15T19:13:20","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T19:13:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/imaginedtheatres.dustysheldon.com\/?post_type=theatre&p=203"},"modified":"2018-04-30T15:53:41","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T15:53:41","slug":"rock-performance","status":"publish","type":"theatre","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/rock-performance\/","title":{"rendered":"Rock Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

A golden canyon in the desert: the walls of the narrows are this theatre’s doors, giving way onto a wide wash\u2014a playing space\u2014in which a low rock formation provides the audience with its bench. They have arrived for a strange, moonlike production of <\/em>The Cherry Orchard. Say it isn’t raining (it never rains here). Say the actors are late for their first cues. Say one of the audience muses aloud to a colleague, waiting<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

PERFORMANCE THEORIST<\/strong><\/p>\n

What must a now-facetious, now-earnest lament for an orchard’s loss mean here<\/em>, a place empty (barren, desolate, remote) and full (colorful, sun-kissed, granularly textured)?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Say the actors are not late. Say they have not arrived. Say they never will.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Say it was never Chekhov: gradually, the audience realizes that the rocks are this canyon’s performers: slow\u2026 and, so it seems once the audience is conscious of the performance, yet slower\u2026 and slower, still. Still. It is the slowest performance to which this audience has ever borne witness. <\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It is the last performance to which they will ever bear witness. Determined to watch, to sense, until its end, they are outlived by the performance, by the imperceptibly moving rocks.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The dead audience debates the meaning of the performance with the other ghosts in the canyon. For whom or what or how is rock performance?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

SHOSHONE WOMAN<\/strong><\/p>\n

The universe.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MORMON TREKKER<\/strong><\/p>\n

God.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PROSPECTOR<\/strong><\/p>\n

The devil.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

BORAX COMPANY SHAREHOLDER<\/strong><\/p>\n

Capital.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TOURIST I<\/strong><\/p>\n

Me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TOURIST II<\/strong><\/p>\n

My camera.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PERFORMANCE THEORIST<\/strong><\/p>\n

Not me. \u2026 And not not me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PERFORMANCE THEORIST II<\/strong><\/p>\n

It. Just it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The rocks do not hear them. And they do not not hear them. Still, there is rock performance. Still.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gradually, the audience realizes that the rocks are this canyon’s performers. It is the slowest performance to which this audience has ever borne witness.","protected":false},"menu_order":0,"template":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/theatres\/203"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/theatres"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/theatre"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginedtheatres.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}