“The Transit of Mercury Across the Face of the Sun” is a new play by Bob Lawson, which opens on April 20 and lasts until April 24. All performances are at 7:30 p.m. in Franklin Pierce’s Warehouse Theater and last a little longer than an hour.
Bob Lawson is the writer and director of the new spring play about a character named Edmund “who is losing his memory and trying to cope with it,” said Lawson. “The inspiration came from my wife’s father, who has Parkinson’s, and the book ‘The Art of Memory’ by Frances A. Yates.” Lawson feels the play is coming along well.
This play is a new “experimental theater piece. It was created with the actors and designers over the past two months. It has changed wildly, and there were new ideas all of the time,” said Lawson. There are 12 people in the cast and they perform different roles. Peter Strand is the main character, Edmund.
“The piece itself has three pieces to it. We’ve been working on the way the audience enters the theater (through a hallway), the program, and the production itself. There are clues and things in the hallway, the program, and even in the poster. There is a lot to take in. I hope the audience will have a 360 degree experience. Every element is part of the puzzle of the play,” said Lawson.
If you are looking to see a musical, you are not going to see one per se. “It’s definitely not a musical, but there is a lot of music,” said Lawson. “It is a music/theater/dance production.” The stage is all over the theater.
I visited a rehearsal and talked to Kristin Kerrigan, the props master, and Egypt Dixon, the assistant stage manager, to get their take on the play. “[The play] is like a reality vs. a dream world. Edmund goes on a journey to find his grandfather because he has the same disease and on the way he meets different people. There is also a lot of narration,” said Kerrigan.
Be the first to comment on this article!