Screenshot courtesy of The Milwaukee Rep
The Milwaukee Rep’s “Our Home to Your Home” series features 21 original pieces from writers whose work they have previously commissioned or produced. Tags by Rajiv Joseph is now on view featuring veteran stage actor Jay O. Sanders.
The Milwaukee Rep’s “Our Home to Your Home” series is providing a fascinating glimpse into the thoughts of today’s playwrights through “micro-plays.” Adjusting to virtual programming in this Age of Pandemic, a micro play is typically three pages long with one actor looking back at us through the computer screen. Now on view: Tags by Rajiv Joseph, last remembered for his Guards at the Taj production on the Rep’s Powerhouse stage.
The Rep has commissioned 21 original pieces for the Home series from writers whose work they have previously commissioned or produced, according to Associate Artistic Director and Director of New Play Development May Adrales.
“Rajiv is one my absolute favorite writers and one of the first people we reached out to write for this endeavor,” explains Adrales. “Our prompt was simply to write a piece about hope and connection. Rajiv’s take on that was completely original and his own. The grandfather in this piece is deeply hurting and turning to a community on the web in search of connection. Like many of his pieces, it intertwines themes of spirituality, darkness, pain and hope.”
The eight and a half-minute piece is mesmerizing with veteran stage actor Jay O. Sanders as the grandfather searching in a virtual “new world” for his loved one. That an actor can hold an audience’s attention while sitting and talking on the other side of the screen is a testament to Sanders’ talent and his performance. As Adrales says, “Jay is an imposing, manly figure but possesses such vulnerability and sensitivity. I knew he would bring the necessary layers of depth to the piece.”
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One of the interesting choices both actor and director faced was who is the actor’s “scene partner?” With no stage, no other live actors, how does that work with the online approach?
“We arrived at the choice that he was speaking to his community on the dark web and sharing this story in hopes of reaching for his granddaughter and also for hope that she may be looked after and cared for, even if she is out of his reach,” Adrales says.
And there are the challenges of the virtual process, technical and otherwise. But there also surprising benefits to those that explore what online programming like the Tags micro-play demonstrates.
“Artists are inventing ways to adapt to this new stage, which though limited in scope, offers a sense of intimacy and immediacy,” Adrales says, adding, “In Tags, we get to see directly into Jay’s eyes, and see a man in great desperation and our hearts are compelled to beat along with his.”
And, without revealing too much of the engrossing storyline of Tags, it is Sanders’ heartfelt performance that captivates and pulls us in—virtually—farther and farther. We sense and see that “intimacy and immediacy” up close, beyond the screen. It’s a view only possible by traveling the “virtual path.”
“The most rewarding aspect I’ve found in this virtual online programming is its radical accessibility. Anyone anywhere can experience world class writing and acting for free,” Adrales says. “I love breaking open the doors to the theater in that way. I am hoping that this is an aspect of the programming we can continue once live theater commences again.”
To view Tags and other programming in the “From Our Home to Your Home,” visit: www.MilwaukeeRep.com
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To read more articles by Harry Cherkinian, click here.
