Ages
By Torn Space Theater
Written & Directed by Dan Shanahan and Melissa Meola
About AGES
Ages is an operatic examination of the ages and stages of life. Designed for the parkland lawn around a great cottonwood tree, the audience, pedestrians and picnickers gather to witness the overlapping beautiful and banal moments of life. The shared human moments of independence and co-dependence, love and loss, accidents and miracles, and the here and now play out over the timeline of the universe. Familiar figures in the Torn Space mythology return, presenting the growing family of their multi-generational fictional society. In this time of seemingly ceaseless turmoil, take a moment to reflect on the year’s events in a venue like no other- the space where you are right now.
The Setting
The Park is the collective space where different ages, economic systems, genders and sexualites co-exist. A park is a Heterotopia – a concept elaborated by philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive spaces that are somehow ‘other’: disturbing, intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. Heterotopias are worlds within worlds, mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside.” They are times out of time, where people can easily and without charge or significant travel, escape, to be alone or alone with someone else, or to practice or to compete or to think differently than in other “usual” spaces of the day. Parks are “democratic” spaces. They are a training ground for other more radical notions of equality and therefore are “worlds within worlds – mirroring yet upsetting what is outside”
The Poems of Carl Dennis
Carl Dennis graciously allowed us to use several of his poems that form the basis of our text. These poems draw focus to the quieter moments we all experience or can imagine ourselves experiencing; they draw focus to chance and circumstance and provide a lens to acutely observe the daily activities that make up a life.
Stephanie Burt, reviewing Dennis’s Callings in the New Republic noted, “It is in the minor efforts, the daily or weekly rewards and tasks that make up most of any life, that Dennis finds his métier. Dennis’s moderate, easy tone—his accessibility—frequently masks a deep sense of nostalgia, loss, grief, and even fear (Poetry Foundation). His level of discursiveness, his ongoing syntax, can become almost scary. If you keep talking intelligibly (the style implies), so that other people understand you, you will have some way to know that you are still alive (Stephanie Burt).
Dennis has received numerous honors and awards for his work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he has received the Oscar Blumenthal Prize, the Bess Hokin Prize, the J. Howard and Barbara M.J. Wood Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Prize (Poetry Foundation).
Movement One: Supported/Unsupported – Independence and Co-Dependence
Someone flies a kite
A family sets up a picnic on the grass
A mother and child practice walking
Children play ball
The child is pushed on the swing
A plein air painter begins to paint
The girl swings alone
The girl swings with a friend
A man walks by with a newspaper and sits alone
A beer bottle is broken
A man walks with difficulty
Broken glass is swept up
Movement Two: Accidents and Miracles – The Impact of Suddenness
A memorial is set up with balloons
A civic emergency drill is practiced
New relationships are formed
A couple shares a kiss
A yoga class begins
The teenage girl talks selfies with her friends on swing
The girl shares a first kiss with a boy
The man on a bench gets bad news
People sunbathe
A science class is given
Movement Three: The Here and Now
A couple converses on the bench
The woman swings on the swing with the man
The woman sits alone on the swing
Skygazers ponder Big Questions
A birthday party
Circle dance
Texts used in this performance:
Candles by Carl Dennis
Best World by Carl Dennis
Seven Ages of Man speech from Shakespeare’s As You Like It
Nobody Knows by Carl Dennis
Stop Light by Carl Dennis
Music used in this performance:
Erik Satie – Gymnopedie #1-3 and Gnossiennes #1-6. Reinbert de Leeuw
Brian Eno- Golden Hours
Performed by:
Leon Alston
Deymia Donaldson
Thea Duskin
Becky Globus
Justin Leis
Marshall Maxwell
Jeanvier Nkurunziza
Matthew Rittler
Carmen Swans
Kalub Thompson
Christine Turturro
Sara Wierzba
Priscilla Young-Anker
Children
Ford Shanahan
Vaughn Esme Shanahan
Lucien Vanouse
Family
LarLwe Say
Eh Wah
Hser Raylod Dah
Tha Dah
Poets reading in the Park:
August 12th Sherry Robbins
August 13th Carl Dennis
August 19th Mary Richert
August 20th David Landry
Production Team
Co-Directors/Co-Writers – Dan Shanahan, Melissa Meola Shanahan
Production/Stage Manager – Carly Weiser
Assistant Stage Manager – Sarah Foote
Managing Director – Marisa Caruso
Technical Directors – Matthew Divita, Tony Rajewski
Digital Marketing Manager – Holly Kirkpatrick
Sound Design – Justin Rowland
Costume Design – Jessica Wegrzyn
Prop Designer – Thea Duskin
Carpenter – Sean Kulak
Technical Crew – Daniel Toner, Andrew Zuccari, Marcus Aiello
Video/VR Documentation – FLATSITTER
Silo City Management – Kate Gorman
Silo City Landscape Ecologist – Josh Smith
Box Office/Front of House Manager – Kylie Priscilla
Box Office/Organizational Support – Anna Seidl, Jenn Carter
Special Thanks: Rick Smith, Carl Dennis, Just Buffalo Literary Center, Josh Smith, Kate Gorman and The Adam Mickiewicz Library and Dramatic Circle
Originally produced for the 2022 INTERSECTION: Performance Series
Dates: August 12-14, 19-21; Rain Dates: August 18 & 22
Doors at 7:00pm, Show starts promptly at 7:30pm
Venue: 630 Ohio St. Buffalo, NY 14203