The Binding
by Evan Hill
2013
Theatre Y at St. Luke’s Lutheran Church
directed by Melissa Lorraine
choreographed by Denes Debrei and Heni Varga
assistant directed by Kevlyn Hayes
featuring Arch Harmon, Laura Jones, Margaret Kustermann, Hank Hilbert, Andy Shoen, Joel Moses, Bill Gordon, Adrian and Liam vanderBijl.
Music by Evan Hill and Paul vanderBijl
Theatre Y’s inaugural production at our St. Luke’s Space, The Binding was the collaborative creation of two husband and wife teams: Serbian choreographers Denes Debrei and Heni Varga, and director Lorraine and playwright Hill. The Binding featured a month long workshop with the choreographers. Hill’s neo-Shakespearean work—a retelling of the binding of Isaac. Recasting the biblical Abraham as a sort of Mute Everyman who is hanging himself at the beginning of the night…suspended between death and the fleeting opportunity to ask death himself for an explanation; only to find death more orphaned and servile than he. A highly physical staging from Lorraine, Debrei and Varga: twin boy sopranos, violin, toy piano, Dulcitar and Ram’s Horn, a red chair suspended from the ceiling, and one white wagon, torched. A poet’s walk into the mouth of death in a silent world.
Photo credit: Devron Enarson
