There were certain risks inherent in how Chris Seibert and Ray Bobgan went about creating Cut to Pieces, which opens this week at Cleveland Public Theatre. They started with some writings by Seibert and the idea of making a theater piece in which video plays a role in defining the characters. But they had no subject in mind when they started. There is a kind of powerlessness in waiting to see what springs from one’s imagination.
“I didn’t know what it was going to be about,” says Bobgan.
“[Seibert’s] writing had been around dismemberment and the myth of
Persephone in Hades, and thinking about the place of women in the
world. Ultimately, over time, the story revealed itself to us. It
starts as a whodunit story in a mansion in Hades, and Hades [a
character as well as a place] has brought together six strange
individuals and reveals that he himself is going to die. They are here
for the reading of the will. When he’s gone to bed, they all begin to
discover body parts around the house. After that’s when things get
complicated. But it’s actually easy to follow.”
The piece had a long birthing process. Bobgan was talking with
Seibert about creating a solo show four years ago, but Cleveland Public
Theatre was going through some uncertainty in its artistic leadership,
so at the time, they didn’t expect to produce it there. Then Bobgan got
the artistic director’s job and Seibert became director of education.
Suddenly, both were busy trying to refocus and re-invigorate the
organization. In Bobgan’s words, “We were totally buried.”
Things have stabilized now, freeing them to take another look at
their concept. Meanwhile, their idea for using video to react to the
tempo of the performance received grant funding, so Siebert’s raw
material — combined with Bobgan’s interest in using video as a
storytelling device to complement live action — landed a place in
CPT’s season. Most of the video was shot and edited by Spencer
Padilla.
At nearly two hours, Cut to Pieces is long for a one-woman
show, but Bobgan thinks the video and the interplay it creates with
live action will counter that. But, even a week before opening, Bobgan
was still reaching to explain the piece.
“It’s very personal, even if we haven’t experienced everything in
the show,” he says. “Nothing is literally autobiographical, but some
things were inspired by events. Clearly in the story, someone was
raped. But it is ultimately redemptive.”
This article appears in May 13-19, 2009.