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C ARTS | C venues at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe | C cubed, Brodie’s Close, Lawnmarket, EH1 2PS, venue 50

20-26 Aug (even dates only) and in the ongoing programme on-demand (1hr15) Tickets £9-10 in person and

£4.50-£17.50 on demand Theatre (Storytelling, New writing, Contemporary, Multimedia, Solo show)

(recommended for ages 12+)

C ARTS box office +44 (0)131 581 5555 / res.CtheArts.com/event/34:3400

 

Gareth K Vile speaks to storyteller Elise Robertson.

Who says we can’t have fun saving the world? Writer/actor/director Elise

Robertson unravels her own messy coming-of-age in an attempt to get to the truth about environmental icon and fellow Pittsburgher Rachel Carson’s nature in her solo debut Imagining Rachel, which premieres live for four performances only at Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022.

Rachel Carson is known for exposing the damage that pesticides were doing to man and nature both, but fiercely guarded her own privacy. She hid her battlewith breast cancer even as her book Silent Spring called out DDT as a carcinogen, fearing she would be labelled hysterical (she was anyway). She also hid the truth about her niece’s out-of-wedlock child (whom she later adopted), and herrelationship with Maine neighbour Dorothy Freeman.

Can you tell me a little bit about how Rachel Carson came to be important to you, and how this developed into the performance?

It was slow seduction. To be embarrassingly honest, I wanted to try my hand at solo performance and was casting around for a character from history to work on. I’m a nature lover, and had a vague understanding of Rachel Carson as an environmental superhero who spoke up about pesticides.  But then I discovered 1. She grew up just a few miles from where I did in Western Pennsylvania and 2. We actually look a bit alike. She also had a vacation cottage in Maine a few miles from my husband’s family vacation cottage. So many similarities, it seemed like a natural fit.

But as I dove more deeply into her life and work, I found myself struggling to connect. She and her Mom were very close—Maria would come and hang out in her dorm room at college and type her term papers. For me college had been about escaping my home life. Also, Rachel was in love with a woman but was very secretive about it. Whereas I was a little too open and kind of boy-crazy, and made whole lot of bad decisions because of that. I was having a really hard time identifying with her female-centric life, which made it quite difficult to write the story.

Ultimately, I had to confront some pretty serious demons about myself to find my way through to her point-of-view, and my journey became a whole new story thread. The show transformed from a biographical piece about Rachel Carson into something much richer: a piece about both of us that raises questions about art, motherhood, feminism, and more.

Carson's work as an environmentalist seems to sit at the beginnings of the 'Green' movement. How far does her legacy and philosophy influence the dramaturgy of this work?

This is such an interesting question—it perfectly illuminates the central throughline of the show!   Rachel Carson was all about connections—watching how various creatures interact and how ecosystems work, seeing the bigger picture. She became an environmentalist because of her deep love for the natural world that grew from observing and recognizing herself as part of it. This started when she was very young, instilled her by her mother. When Rachel became a scientist, she brought this philosophy with her. At the time, though, proactive science was the trend. DDT was a result of this movement, a well-intentioned but myopic attempt to make the world better through science.  In her multiple capacities as scientist, writer, government worker, foster mother, avid birder, and community speaker, Rachel was in the unique position to understand not only the science behind DDT, but to learn about the real-world effects it was having. She received letters from all over the world and used these to build a case about DDT’s danger.  She made these connections exactly because of her wide-ranging experience, not the least of which was her role as foster mother and women’s group speaker. Roles that were subtly derided by her male colleagues.  

As an artist my goal has been to create a show in which this interconnectedness is at the core. Between Rachel and the environment, between myself and Rachel, between what happens on stage and with the audience. We build this not only through the narrative itself, but in the staging, which weaves objects together (both literally and figuratively) to manifest the theme.

I remember one of my early conversations with Steve Simone-Friedland, who directs this live version. We were talking about how to visually embrace these ‘threads of connection’ and contemplating using actual string to bring the audience into the web.”

“So you’re saying that by the end of the show, you and the audience will all be tied up in one big knot?” he asks.

“Yes!”

Well, no. We couldn’t do that literally, fire regulations and all… J  But that was, and is, the idea that we have woven into the work.

And puppets: can you tell me how you came to love the inanimate? 

Pretty sure I was born with that! Since I was a kid, I’ve always loved to collect things—leaves, stones, objects around the house—and then make things out of them. Little fairy houses, furniture, creatures. It delighted me no end to take things that I found and transform them into something else, endowing them with a new purpose, a life. It still does. I teach stop motion and puppet work to kids and every single time a kid builds a puppet and then brings it to life for the first time and I see that look on their face… Whoah. That’s big magic.   

In college I majored in theatre, but I also studied art. When I was almost out of school, I lucked into an internship on a stop motion film called The Nightmare Before Christmas. A few weeks in, one of the painters got fired and the character supervisor handed me one of the musician puppets and Tim Burton’s color illustration and said, “Paint this.” And I had to come up with that paint effect. I barely knew how to airbrush! But I winged it and got the job.

I spent a decade working as a puppet fabricator and model builder before moving back into performing, but it still informs every project I do. I really can’t engage fully with a project without approaching it on multiple levels. I’m always thinking of things from an elemental perspective—how does every object on the stage, the light, the color, the costumes—how do all of these things inform the story and how can we tell the story through them? The way Rachel Carson makes connections in the natural world, that gift of seeing the bigger picture? That’s how my mind works too, but in a practical, engineering sort of way, as opposed to her reflective, observational one.

What role do the puppets play in your production? Is there any sense in which their materiality responds to the environmental themes of the show?

What role do the puppets play in your production? Is there any sense in which their materiality responds to the environmental themes of the show?

When we were first chatting, I said that there weren’t that many puppets in my piece. Upon reflection, I’m not sure that’s quite accurate. The conceit of the show is that I walk into a space with a suitcase, a box, and a stick and use the things around me to conjure a world.  So it’s quite spare in terms of what’s on stage. But each element has been endowed with a kind of life.  So, the ‘puppets’ are: a piece of ribbon that becomes an eel, my sleeves that become co-workers, one hand puppet, and a Barbie. But perhaps the central object of the piece –which I’ve been calling it a prop but am thinking I would like to redefine as a character—is an 8-foot wooden stick. I have coined the term ‘tide stick’ for this piece. It’s like a rain stick, but when I turn it the sound is gentler and longer…to embody the ebb and flow of the ocean waves which were so elemental to Rachel Carson. We all think of her as the Silent Spring lady, but she wrote three remarkable books about the ocean first, in which she brought to life the journeys of various creatures not by endowing them with human qualities, but by inviting us into their experience. So this stick gets used throughout the show in different ways, including to mark flow of the tides, and of time. And there are strings that are attached to the stick which also get used in different ways, to depict water, a net, and the invisible threads of interconnectivity between all life forms.  

And a slightly inevitable one to finish: why the Edinburgh Fringe?

Because it’s the world’s theatre playground and I want to come play with the other kids here and see what they’re up to!

I created this piece during pandemic, initially, and I put together a digital production out of my tiny little art/acting studio. The digital version utilized animation (stop motion and cut out), greenscreen curtains, and some digital magic. I’ve been touring the digital piece virtually for a year with C ARTS, but when Hartley at C ARTS suggested I bring the show live to Fringe, I realized that a live production was what I really craved, and what the piece needed. It would be would bring me so much closer to the audiences that I’m trying to reach.  I am overjoyed to be reimagining the piece now for a live performance with the assistance of director Steven Simone-Friedland.  

My ultimate goal with this project is to tour it to not only theatres but to environmental groups, universities, communities—anywhere this message can inspire a sense of connection with the environment. And through that connection, a desire for stewardship.  I’d love to meet like-minded groups at Fringe who are looking for programming. And, since I’m basically a one-woman band, I’m hoping this can make economic sense too. My whole show is conjured from two stepladders, a bucket, a stick, and my magic suitcase. A bit of lighting and an ability to run some sound cues helps, but I’m also able to perform a Capella in your back yard