Marc Bamuthi Joseph/Photo by Bethanie Hines
The Living Word Project’s red, black & GREEN: a blues begins with an invitation to audience members to tour the stage as if they’re in an art gallery.
During their walking “tours,” theatergoers can examine four structures representing cities — Chicago, Houston, New York, and Oakland. In each of these cities, Living Word Project’s artistic director Marc Bamuthi Joseph has produced one of his Life Is Living urban eco-festivals. Together, these cabins on the stage, crafted by artist Theaster Gates, form a shotgun house. Joseph describes it as similar to a shack in a township in Soweto, Johannesburg, or on a back road in Fifth Ward Houston. An actor occupies each of the structures.
“The actors are basically performing aspects of the show that will make a little deeper sense later,” says Joseph, referring to the rest of his 90-minute meditation on what sustains life in struggling communities. “The whole first half-hour is a gallery installation that’s a foreshadowing of the linear play to come.” It all starts Thursday at REDCAT.
Read the full article at LA Stage Times
Jessica Koslow 