From Jan. 31 to Feb. 1, Rainbow Zebra Productions presented a staged reading of Julie H\u00e9bert\u2019s new play \u201cEntangled\u201d at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco. With only three days of preparation, the actors gave a raw performance exploring the nature of death.<\/p>\n
Two actresses holding scripts \u2014 Anne Darragh in a thick down jacket and Kina Kantor in an itchy red sweater \u2014 walked onto an undressed stage, maneuvering around blocking cubes to greet each other. By the end of the play, their embodiment of deeply human and incredibly intelligent characters flung the audience into the imaginary snow-capped mountains of Los Alamos, New Mexico.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Set during the 2021 COVID-19 lockdown, two female scientists and a local handyman arrive at a remote laboratory to conduct research on the ultimate mystery of the science world \u2014 the afterlife. As their relationships progress and baggage unloads, they inch closer toward the answer to life\u2019s most profound question: \u201cWhat\u2019s the point?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
This workshop production, in all its unfinished and fictitious glory, sharpened all the edges of life that had been dulled. Somehow, under a mimed tequila haze or maybe septic shock, the natures of reality and connection were laid out in full view.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Daily Californian, H\u00e9bert recounted her experiences at the Santa Fe Institute \u2014 a think tank in New Mexico dedicated to interdisciplinary science. Surrounded by Nobel laureates who doubled as consultants for directors, she was inspired to delve into the concept of quantum entanglement from physics, aiming to understand the inextricably linked nature of particles in relation to the human psyche.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cScience can get so specific \u2026 but at some point, somebody has to enlarge the frame so we can talk about these bigger questions and not talk about them in a way that\u2019s superstitious or overly religious (or) \u2026 talking about them in a way that intelligent people can have the conversation without having to do 20 years of science education,\u201d H\u00e9bert said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
H\u00e9bert described the Santa Fe Institute as having a \u201cbold vision of curiosity\u201d and this sentiment shone through in her exploration of science and religion in \u201cEntangled.\u201d Not only did her characters give the audience an undemanding glimpse into the world of science, their experiences with the supernatural were dealt with seriously and delicately. This struggle illuminates the mysterious possibility of coexistence that many scientists themselves grapple with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
H\u00e9bert\u2019s character\u2019s existential dilemma mimics her own \u2014 \u201cIt makes sense that there\u2019s no life after death. We can\u2019t prove it. We\u2019ve never proven it. And yet \u2026 sometimes people have experiences that can\u2019t be explained.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As a writer and producer who\u2019s worked on shows such as \u201cER\u201d and \u201cNumb3rs,\u201d H\u00e9bert is a longtime translator of scientific concepts and jargon for the public.<\/p>\n
\u201cScientists and these big scientific institutes realize the importance of getting scientific data out to the public, and they realize the importance of storytelling, and storytelling that is accurate, or at least stories that are not inaccurate.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aside from science, H\u00e9bert imbued her play with themes of trapped relationships, guilt, grief and the invisible walls that divide people. Over the course of the story, the characters themselves became entangled, even moving and speaking in a cohered way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A special relationship blossomed between chirpy cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Peregrine Lewis (Kantor) and arrogant but jaded quantum physicist Dr. Teresa Bloom (Darragh). Throughout the entire 95 minute play, the two women truly level with each other, providing a rare exploration of what it means to live a meaningful life, in both a personal and professional sense. H\u00e9bert characterizes this as \u201ca kind of debate or argument about deeply held belief systems among these people.\u201d Along the way, Teresa is shaken with humility as her life\u2019s work crumbles before her eyes while Peregrine internalizes a lesson on action in the face of discontent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The theme of professional females helping each other out is central to H\u00e9bert\u2019s work. Outside of the theater scene, she built her project \u201cLook What She Did,\u201d which unlike this play, tells stories about extraordinary women.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When her characters ask what the point is, the answer lies in the emotion and curiosity sparked by H\u00e9bert\u2019s piece of art. In a meta sense, \u2019s play is a vessel to entangle the lives of not just the character, but also the audience. Even after the lights came on and the actors took their bows, personal conversations about religion and science continued.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t feel certain about any of it, but I feel curious about it,\u201d H\u00e9bert said.<\/p>\n
She hopes that \u201cEntangled,\u201d if brought to a broader audience, will be an evergreen play about one of humanity\u2019s unsolvable questions. Despite not arriving at a concrete answer about the nature of the divine, she revels in the joy of debate, believing that universal questions can bring people together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Jan. 31 to Feb. 1, Rainbow Zebra Productions presented a staged reading of Julie H\u00e9bert\u2019s new play…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173655,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[83002,83000,83001,83003,83004,83005,101,103,102,83006,104,106,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-173654","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco","8":"tag-anne-darragh","9":"tag-entangled","10":"tag-julie-hbert","11":"tag-kina-kantor","12":"tag-magic-theatre","13":"tag-rainbow-zebra-productions","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-headlines","16":"tag-san-francisco-news","17":"tag-santa-fe-institute","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-headlines","20":"tag-sf-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173654\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}