Building a sci-fi universe on stage
“Wrinkle” has been on the radar at the Arden for years, but it was never pursued because, in part, the story is so complex. “Wrinkle” is an adventure story taking place on different planets that are accessible through concepts of theoretical physics.
Nolen did not see a way to make “Wrinkle” work on stage until he saw how his creative team pulled off J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” last spring.
“They found a great way to do ‘The Hobbit’ that was unique and that wasn’t in response to the movie,” he said. “Their ability to find ways to tell the story that are theatrical and really fun, that don’t rely on special effects, that use the imagination — stuff that theater was born to do.”
When audiences enter the theater they are encouraged to look up. Dangling over their heads from wires fixed to the ceiling are dozens of random objects painted bright colors, not just above the stage, but over the seating. The array does double duty of enveloping the audience in the theatrical world of “Wrinkle” and evoking the randomness of the universe.
“We were talking about how the universe is full of stuff, and it all is made of the same stuff,” director Becky Wright said of the production’s designers Sasha Jin Schwartz and Maria Shaplin.
“All of the atoms, all of the stardust, everything you see out there, everything that you see around you, all of that is the universe,” she said.
When the characters on stage jump into a wormhole that transports them to a different planet at a different time, the ceiling lights up and a disco ball spins. The audience is briefly showered in speckles of light.
“The kids go crazy looking at the lights on their body,” Nolen said. “Feeling that they’re traveling in time and space as well.”
Nolen spends his time studying his audience’s body language. He said what is driving the thrilling adventure through an imagined fifth dimension is fundamentally a story about a family.
“The story of this young teenager trying to save her dad,” he said. “Whenever that notion comes up of dad being gone, dad being missing, in every performance the kids shift. The kids lean in because they understand, then, what the story is about.”
Director Becky Wright on the set of the Arden Theatre’s production of ”A Wrinkle in Time.” (Peter Crimmins/WHYY)
‘A Wrinkle in Time’ as a teaching tool
“A Wrinkle in Time” was a tough sell when author Madeleine L’Engle started showing it to publishers in the early 1960s. Many scratched their heads: A science fiction story with a girl protagonist? Theoretical physics? Foreign languages sprinkled here and there? One reader for a publisher noted it was “The worst book I ever read.”
But once published, the book was an immediate hit. It won the Newbery Award in 1963 and has stayed in print ever since.
“When I was growing up there was little that resembled a distinct young adult literature genre,” said Jen McLaughlin Cahill, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education and the director of the Philadelphia Writer’s Project.
“‘A Wrinkle in Time’ was one of my favorite novels,” she said. “One I read repeatedly.”
Cahill points to an educational theory put forth by Rudine Sims Bishop in 1990 that says children’s literature can simultaneously be a mirror, a window and a sliding glass door, meaning books should offer readers the ability to see themselves, see something unfamiliar and to enter into an imaginative world through empathy.
“Bishop and many others theorize that such experiences are central to developing meaningful literate lives,” Cahill wrote in an email. “As a child, ‘A Wrinkle in Time’ served that role for me.”
Wright says the mirror, window and glass door triad also apply to the ideals of children’s theater.
“As a theater artist, I’m always thinking about invitation as one of the modes of the places that I make,” she said. “I don’t just want to show people a world. I want to invite them into it. How can I make a piece of theater that very clearly says, ‘Welcome. We want you to be here. You’re a part of this’?”
“A Wrinkle in Time” runs at the Arden Theatre until Jan. 25. It is recommended for ages 4 and up.
The cast of Arden Theatre Company’s production of ”A Wrinkle in Time” in Philadelphia. (Ashley Smith/Wide Eyed Studios)