Dreams and Diatribes Redux

Beyond the Proscenium Productions is opening a show about movement—and a few other things, too. Dreams and Diatribes Redux has a cast of five, playing characters based on Jungian archetypes: the Judge, the Lover, the Mystic, the Fool and the Warrior. Each interacts with the others and has different relationships conveyed through words and motion. Just don’t expect a conventional plot.

“There is no narrative storyline, as in mainstream theater,” advised Ann Tracy, who wrote the piece about seven years ago, “but the characters do achieve individual epiphanies.” As she explained, the piece addresses “themes of fear, entrapment and culture, staged using viewpoints, a postmodern theatrical practice.”

There is a script, which Tracy said “surged” from her fingers when she wrote it. “It riffs on popular culture, vegetables and why we need dreams to survive,” Tracy said. Just to be a bit more elusive, she added, “It’s more like an abstract painting, rather than a landscape.”

Tracy directed Dreams and Diatribes as a Second Saturday performance piece shortly after she wrote it. This revival puts the project in the hands of director Nick Avdienko. Tracy indicated that Avdienko is finding things in the script she hadn’t necessarily anticipated but is pleased to encounter.