Ross Goldman jokingly faults Los Angeles’ pleasant weather for his trouble in obtaining a thunder sound effect for UCLA’s upcoming production of “The Green Bird.”
But the second-year theater student and sound designer needn’t worry about an utter lack of thunder: Director David Bridel has instructed the actors to yell the word “thunder” in place of the effect.
Bridel abandons any pretension of creating a world to which the audience is transported. He instead makes audience members aware that they are watching a play.
“I prefer for both audience and actors to know that we’re engaged in a mutual celebration of whatever story’s being told,” Bridel said.
“In order to do that, I think it’s worth pointing out the theatrical elements that are unfolding before your eyes instead of trying to pretend that they’re happening in a way that is somehow realistic.”
The unorthodox sound effect is just one of the techniques used in Bridel’s stripped-down version of “The Green Bird.” Presented in a workshop format, the production eliminates sets and distributes the brunt of the storytelling work to acting and sound design. Performances start tonight in Macgowan Hall.
“The Green Bird,” originally written in Italian by Carlo Gozzi, blends 18th century commedia dell’arte (an Italian style of improvisational theater) with elements of a fairy tale to tell the story of royal twins who are abandoned at birth by their paternal grandmother. Once kicked out of their foster home, the twins embark on a journey to find their biological parents and, along the way, encounter tigers, talking statues and a mystical green bird.
“I think that the audience will leave the play enchanted,” said third-year graduate acting student Trey McCurley, who plays the king of the statues. “It brings you to sort of a higher consciousness. It explores philosophical ideas, it’s full of magic and adventure and it’s somewhat dark at times. It just explores everything that is primal and is who we are.”
Beneath the surface of the light fairy tale runs a thread of conservatism. Gozzi wrote the fanciful play just as his contemporaries began to edge towards social realism, and the conservatism appears not only in the preservation of the comedic form but also in Gozzi’s investigation of moral issues.
An array of themes receives attention in the play as the characters come to terms with love, lust, greed and death.
“Gozzi was not a radical, and, as a result, both as a man of literature and also a thinker in the world, he considered that breaking or threatening or challenging the status quo was not the way to live life. … As a Christian and as a writer, Gozzi was trying to protect what he loved the best,” Bridel said.
Yet, Bridel anticipates that the fairy tale aspect of the story will be the component that the audience most readily identifies with. Bridel is confident that the workshop format allows for a greater connection between audience members and actors.
“(This format) means that the emphasis goes away from the shaping of the space and much more to what the actors themselves can invent to sustain the story. … It’s really through their work as actors that they have to put faith in the fairy tale and hopefully communicate that to an audience,” he said.
Sound is also playing a sizable role in stimulating the imagination of the audience.
Goldman uses a variety of effects to suggest the settings and circumstances of the play to the audience, including the manipulation of actors’ voices to create ethereal characters and soundscapes that sonically depict caves and gardens.
Goldman recognizes that the workshop production is a departure from modern theater, in which lush sets make imagination in audience members unnecessary.
“I think (the lack of sets) makes (my job) more difficult, more of a challenge because I’m constantly having to compensate for what world we’re in,” Goldman said.
But Bridel believes that good theater allows audiences to more actively participate in the story.
“It’s sort of inspiring to be invited into a world as an audience member where you are contributing to what’s being imagined in front of you,” he said.