Building a City on a Stage

Carlos Treviño and Cyndi Williams try to start a little fire in one of the four storylines in Orange.

Your city is dying.

Well, maybe not your city. Maybe the people in your city aren't afraid to drink tap water and can eat the fish they catch in the river. Maybe your city isn't ruled by a corporate elite and doesn't keep making the same mistakes, growing ever larger, ever more crowded, more polluted, more repressed. Maybe, in your city, children always feel safe.

When I first heard about Refraction Arts Project's new play Orange, I thought the title must be a riff on the Homeland Security Advisory System, "Orange" meaning "High" and only one step away from "Red" for "Severe." (And that should please the Bush administration, knowing that at least one citizen now relates the color orange to paranoia, violence, and death.) Then I talked with Orange playwright Ron Berry. "One of the initial images that inspired the play," says Berry, "was this bright-orange ball that allows these two lovers, who are separated by time, to exchange messages and be together." Umm, OK. But didn't it have anything to do with Homeland Security? "Well, that too. There were several initial images, and the thread that started to connect these images was a city. We created this fictitious city, and there were several different storylines occurring in this city's history, all racing toward this great fire." Adds director Carlos Treviño, "The play takes place in three time periods: the turn of the century, the early 1950s, and a few years in the future. There's overlap between the time periods, but they're all independently their own story as well."

What they are is epic, and epic is not something often attempted in the theatre, much less by a relatively small group like Refraction Arts. Check out the details: four storylines, some based on fact, some entirely fiction, and including characters like the Whore of Babylon and a 12-year-old girl who hears voices from a portable radio; 15 writers, including award winners such as Cyndi Williams and well-known Austinites such as Katherine Catmull, Mical Trejo, and Jessica Hedrick; 25 cast members, including local favorites Mary Agen Cox, Barbara Chisholm, Robert Pierson, Leigh Anderson Fisher, and even Chronicle Arts Editor Robert Faires.

"This is a workshop production, not quite a reading, not quite a full production. It is staged and has original music," says Treviño. "Part of the point is to get the opinions of the audience: what they like and what they feel could be done without. And then we'll mount it fully next year."

"One of the driving forces behind the play became this idea of city," says Berry. "How cities work, where they're headed, what's wonderful and what's horrible about cities. I wanted to understand how decisions were made, as I felt powerless watching all these changes taking place in Austin. And I feel it's up to me not to be powerless."

"History calls us to fight against harmful changes before they happen again," adds Treviño. "Besides just being a compelling series of stories, the play is a call to activism for people to get out and address whatever is bothering them. That's what we're trying to do, and that's a big part of what this play is about."

Your city is dying.

You have been warned.