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"UMO redefines the conventions of theater.... Simply masterful!"
— The Stage (London)
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From the Director (Elizabeth Klob):
I always start and end with a list of questions.
What does this tale mean to us today and what did it mean when it was first told?
Why is the old woman in the woods always feared?
How does it warn us?
Who is it safe to love?
How is it safe to love?
Are we just repeating the same story, the same cycles over and over again? (Maybe. Probably).
Should we risk loving? (Absolutely!) Or is the pain of loss enough to kill us?
Do we ever learn?
“The moon looks on…smiles. Looks on again, no wiser.” Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening
Co-Creator Notes (Esther Edelman)
This piece was inspired by Jeannette Winterson's version of Rapunzel in her book Sexing the Cherry. I was intrigued by the archetypes, the humor, and the familiar characters with unfamiliar relationships. Then my mind flashed on an image: Rapunzel’s hair, represented by an aerial apparatus called the 'tissu'. Suddenly I saw the perfect marriage of my desire to mix story with aerial dance.
The archetypes of the Crone, the Princess and the Prince represent aspects of our inner nature waiting to be revealed. That is why children love to hear the same fairy tale story over and over again. In this version of Rapunzel, the magic “spell” is the passion of new-found love and the desire to break from past cycles of hurts and chains. The tower is not under lock and key, but it is a hidden nest of permission to explore age, gender, sexuality, and one’s next stage of life. Of course all the complexities still come out to play their roles, just as each of the characters must play theirs. They are each other’s mirror and thus conspiratorial instigators of change. Ah, a tangled web we weave….
It has been my extreme pleasure melding the world of the fairy tale and the aerial tissu so that each brings out the beauty of the other. These age-old archetypes are profound and powerful, and I am thankful for the opportunity to spend so much time in this world.
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