“Outsider”: This new play has many elements that might make it a success: an evocative plot, music and dance, and the poetry of William Blake who wrote and illustrated “Songs of Innocence.”
This new play is written and directed by local playwright Gail Fleming. “Outsider” opens tonight at Whidbey Island Center for the Arts in Langley.
The story focuses on the magical world of Flora, a woman who has lived alone in the woods for 25 years. She has passed these many years by tending her garden, gathering herbs and drawing.
To help her live in the woods alone for so long, where she felt she belongs, she had to develop her own language to communicate with the natural world around her, including her companion golden eagle.
Her peaceful life is interrupted by Jay Thompson, a professor of biology interested in inter-species communication. He discovers Flora talking with birds in a meadow.
The meeting of Jay and Flora has quite an impact on both of them and we watch as they confront the consequences of fear, loss, objectification and trust and the intimacy of language, according to press material about the show.
Playwright Fleming hopes “Outsider” invites audiences to “explore the essence of their own relationship with nature.”
Fleming wrote and directed the musical “Gaielle Remembering” that was staged in 2003 at WICA. She also appeared on the WICA stage in “Kentucky Cycle,” “A Murder is Announced” and “The Laramie Project.”
Fleming’s play is part of the Whidbey Island Fringe Festival, which provides adventurous artists and audiences a variety of new works.
“Outsider” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 4 p.m. Sundays through Aug. 5 at WICA, 565 Camano Ave., Langley.
Tickets are $12. Call the WICA box office at 360-221-8268 or 800-638-7631 or wicaonline.com.
Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; goffredo@heraldnet.com.
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