‘Lear Alone’ and ‘Walking on a Paper Moon’ Lead Baker Theater Workshop’s Winter Lineup
Cassondra Parkerson, Ken Knight, and Lorelai Kaplan in Walking on a Paper Moon
Cat Brooks / Courtesy of Baker Theater Workshop
Last month, I was fortunate to attend the Pacific Northwest premiere of Anna Tatelman’s play Life on the Moon, produced by Baker Theater Workshop and performed at ReAct Theatre. The play examined the challenges a family experiences when trying to authentically communicate their feelings with each other over the holidays. Furthering on the theme of familial complexity, Baker Theater Workshop will present two plays together from January 10-19 which dig into family dynamics: Lear (alone), and Walking on a Paper Moon.
Lear (alone) continues Baker Theater Workshop’s tradition of producing Shakespeare works in microcosm. This one-act play focuses on the third act of King Lear where Lear is by himself in the stormy moor, confronting his life choices while losing his grip on reality. This crux of the play highlights Lear’s reflections on his relationships with his daughters and his failings as a father. The one-act will feature a narrator, not a feature in the original text. The Workshop's artistic director Peter Temes is directing, with Andrew Weiss serving as an assistant director. Eric Newplan plays Lear, and the supporting cast includes Melissa Takai, Cassondra Parkerson, Jason Marr, Jane Cater, and Peter Temes.
Meanwhile, Walking on a Paper Moon, a new original play also directed by Temes, responds to the themes in Lear with a contemporary and youth-driven perspective. The one-act is co-written by Lorelei Kaplan and Eleanor Iona Edlefsen, two playwrights under the age of 18 who are board members and writers at the 14/48 Projects high school theater festival. The play follows a father and his daughters watching the moon landing in 1969 in the midst of coping with grief. This collaboration came about in alignment with BTW’s mission to uplift new theater works in Seattle, particularly from young and emerging artists. Kaplan and Edlefsen interviewed and applied separately and were chosen to work together. This is the playwrights’ first time co-writing together and the first time working on a longer piece.
In an interview, Kaplan, who has been “performing since I gained control over my limbs,” and Edlefsen, who has “been involved in theater all of my life, mostly being on the stage,” spoke about this new endeavor into playwriting. The duo spent many hours narrowing down the script at Irwin’s Bakery, and Kaplan remarked that although they sometimes clashed, this was part of the process. She added, “Eleanor and I have come back to the idea that we could have written truly anything. We got to see what came directly from our minds, be translated to the page, and now become fully realized.” Edlefsen spoke about how this piece challenged her to explore deeper themes than the shorter and more comedic pieces she’s written for 14/48.
In addition to writing, Edlefsen and Kaplan also both act in Walking on a Paper Moon, alongside Baker Theater company members Cassondra Parkerson and Ken Knight. They both play the character of Sylvia, a unique artistic choice where the cast and audience alike get to observe two different interpretations of emotion, physicality, and tone for the same character.
Jane Cater, Melissa Takai, and Cassondra Parkerson in Lear (alone)
Cat Brooks / Courtesy of Baker Theater Workshop
