Run Baby Run

Here is where the bits and pieces all fall into their lovely lovely places. I sat and watched a run of The Arabian Night yesterday evening and there is some magic happening.

As an invited guest to these little shindigs you know that things that are good will only get better and things that are wonky will find a way, one way or another, to right themselves. You watch with interest as the performers find their sea legs and start to stretch out and see what they can do. And I saw a lot of people taking risks last night. It wouldn't be a Rorschach show if they weren't taking risks.

I will be upfront with all of you; this is like nothing we have ever done before. If I had to tell you exactly what it is I would be hard pressed. So much of the story is tied to the style of the piece, which is a mad wonderful mix of dialogue, internal and external, given life by a company of five talented performers. We peek inside their heads and fantasies. Listening in as mute witnesses to their dreams and nightmares. All the time you are acting as voyeur as much as audience member, looking in the medicine cabinets of people's souls and checking under the bed for the naughty bits we all tuck under our dust ruffles.

The Arabian Night is a show that will probably make a lot of people think more than they are used to and will demand repeat viewing on the parts of some of us. The intricate fabric of the play takes us all down a new kind of rabbit hole mixing the conceits of a fairy tale with those of a modern romantic thriller and then mixes it all with the kind of psycho drama which, to be honest, is more often found on the stages of Berlin and Prague than in church spaces in Northwest D.C.

So much to love about this play and I can't wait for all of you to share in it and find your own way through the confines of an apartment building in Germany with all of the secrets and surprises that hide behind its unassuming and ordinary bricks and mortar.

Great job last night cast and crew. I can't wait to see it when it has all of its parts in place.