“The Bird Hunters of Anthropocenia”
An original play, written and directed by Nathaniel Williams with original music by Aldo Lavaggi
It was a challenging year for theater, as for so many other facets of collective life! We were fortunate that our production lined up with a loosening of public gathering guidelines in New York State, and we were able to offer six ticket-free, outdoor shows, that safely accommodated audiences of forty people each. Our troupe this year consisted of Aldo Lavaggi, Melody Brink, Linda Michael, Madison Shulkin, Nathaniel Williams and Emmett Nelson. There were many volunteers who helped make this project happen. The production included costumes created by Phoebe Martel, who was graciously supported by Arla Trusiewicz and other volunteers. Ella Lapointe created our poster. Catherine Smith brought the gift of looking for still compositions to remember the event through her camera, and a group of safety supporters showed up to help under the coordination of Laura Summer.
The play portrays the history of a world called Anthropocenia and the society of people that live there. In the course of the play, light turns to death, sleep becomes light, and a people who hunted birds and ate them, become the food of great birds themselves.
In ancient times the people learned how to release light from certain stones and they made big holes in the mountains to dig these stones out. They could burn as bright as storm lightening. Over many, many years the people learned from Light, who they looked to for guidance. They worshiped the light who promised that he would help them conquer sleep and death. Most of the people lived underground through light goggles. They were called the Luciens. They spent their time in the light worlds where they were never sleepy. When they did sleep, it was in short patches, brief and superficial. They had long ago stopped having dreams. When they were children they went to light school to learn to control their light bodies by using goggles and small movements of their eyelids. Living in the city was best because it was underground, removed from the pollution of the rock furnace. It was also convenient to live underground where people had full control. They didn’t need to worry about being disturbed by sunset, or sunrise. They could turn the lights on and off. They had control of the light. They put on their goggles and lived in the light. They felt free and they rarely needed sleep.
Not everyone could live in the light cities, or in the light worlds.
Those who had sensitive or defective eyes, or who hated light school, lived outside the lightcities and came to call themselves the bird hunters. There was a constant threat of sickness from the pollution in the sky from the great rock furnace. But there was a silver lining: Creatures who lived by the water were less likely to get sick. And this is where the bird hunters made their home, by the great arm of the sea. There they ate water plants, fish and hunted birds. They would go with their shovels, picks and buckets into the mines, and they would haul out rocks and carry them to the great furnace. This furnace fueled the world of the Luciens.
Such was the life of the bird hunters, and they were never welcomed in the light city.
Most of the bird hunters did not hunt birds. They worked in the mines, fished and harvested water plants. The actual hunters of birds were the few among them who had become leaders. They hunted the white-headed eagle, that fed on fish, and fresh corpse, not unlike our eagles and hawks. The gifted among the young mine workers and fishers were chosen by the elder bird hunters as novices. A rigorous training followed that involved lying still as death and culminated in a hunt for a white-headed eagle. The beak of the eagle was golden and would be used to dye a headband, to show a novice had become a birdhunter.
This play follows the path of a stubborn and ambitious novice birdhunter who eventually receives a task through a mysterious encounter in sleep and is able to restore dreaming among the Luciens.
This project was made possible with funds from the Decentralization Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered in Columbia County by CREATE Council on the Arts as well as Project Hudson.
All photos by Catherine Smith. Poster by Ella Lapointe.