Passion Fueled

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“The ecstatic is our compass, pointing to our true north.”

“Art is far more powerful than our plans for it.”

—Advice for artists from The Creative Act, by Rick Rubin

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There’s nothing quite like a consuming passion. It often comes about unexpectedly when encountering a new idea, project or person. And then it just takes over. That valuable asset, our attention, becomes spellbound by it.

For artists, encounters at this level of intensity are the life blood of creativity, and they are deeply sought after. Getting swept away with a new notion is exhilarating, like having your hand feel the pulse in a throughline that connects you to something much larger than yourself.

Many writers, including Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett and Ruth Stone, have shared their belief that ideas have an intentionality all their own. If you aren’t in a position to engage with it fully, it will move on to someone else. It may be that passion is essential to the art being made as well.

Creatives whose particular art form is storytelling—writers, producers, performers, directors–know how important it is to work with content that comes from a deep connection. Great stories that feature complexity, layered meaning and mystery are even better when passion is at their foundational core.

Two passion-fueled storytellings are being performed in the Boston area right now. Both are projects by women with an overwhelming connection with their material. They have also each been inspired by a controversial woman who, in turn, was also driven by consuming passions.

There’s a pattern.

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ROOTED

Written by Deborah Zoe Laufer

Lyric Stage, Boston

In a recent interview, playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer shared the source material for her play Rooted:

Another inspiration was my obsession with a scientist I discovered online, Monica Gagliano. (Look her up — you won’t regret it!) Her experiments with plants have revealed that plants can learn and remember and communicate. It’s really thrilling work. And, as with all my obsessions, I tell everyone I meet about it until people walk the other way when they see me coming. Once that happens, I have to put it in a play so that my friends can bear to be around me again.

Rooted is built upon Monica Gagliano’s startling—and controversial—research. (And yes, I will reiterate Laufer’s promise that Gagliano’s work will astound you, available in her enthralling book, Thus Spoke the Plant.) Gagliano is an advocate for plant cognition, a new field that researches how plants perceive, learn and remember. The idea of plant intelligence has massively disruptive implications for the way we have perceived plants and the boundary long held between animal and plant life.

Gagliano’s work suggests that while brains and neurons have served animal intelligence, they are not a necessary requirement. “There is some unifying mechanism across living systems that can process information and learn,” she asserts. But her claims have been greeted with rancor from many in the scientific community. Gagliano has been described as a brilliant visionary by some and a complete fraud by others.

Laufer’s play brings her paradigm-busting ideas about plants into the public arena of the theater. With just three characters and an intimate set, Rooted couples Gagliano’s evocative concepts with a narrative that exposes the very human response to significant change—a tendency to seek refuge and safety in easy answers.

Emery is an introverted, amateur botanist living in a remote treehouse. Innocently posting videos of her plant cognition experiments on social media, she inadvertently creates a cult of impassioned followers who now view her as a spiritual guru. Seekers swarm her tree, set up camp and chant for her to heal them. Complexity ensues.

Rooted is an intimately scaled, warm-hearted play. But what stands out most is the force field that brought it into existence in the first place: Gagliano’s extraordinary claims that plants can learn, adjust, adapt and communicate. Laufer’s passion for sharing these ideas was what brought the play into existence.

Now that viewpoint has found another way to propagate and spread. It certainly worked on me. I read Gagliano’s book the night that I saw the play. Now, as was the case with Laufer, I have been recommending it relentlessly to all my friends.

You might say Rooted is the best kind of gateway drug.

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EVITA

Directed by Sammi Cannold

American Repertory Theater, Cambridge

Sammi Cannold remembers instantly falling under the spell of Evita when she saw the Broadway production as a teenager. She devoured Eva Perón biographies and documentaries, then staged a production in college as well as making it the subject of her undergraduate thesis.

Her passion did not dissipate. She made several trips to Argentina to research and interview people who knew Eva, mounted a production at New York City Center in 2019 and is now directing Evita at American Repertory Theater in Cambridge before it heads to Shakespeare Theater Company in Washington DC.

And certainly Eva Perón is a formidable nexus for that kind of devotion. Since her death at 33 in 1952–and in the 45 years since the blockbuster musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice was first staged by Hal Prince–Eva remains controversial, complex and polarizing. Who was the real person behind the glamourous white gown and the rapid rise to political and spiritual fame? For some, Eva was a selfless advocate of the poor and a tireless force behind Argentina’s suffragist movement. Others saw her as deeply damaged, a scheming Machiavellian fascist. Evidence to support both versions is plentiful. As Cannold discovered on her many research trips to Argentina, people either love her or hate her. There is no in between.  

In a TEDx talk called Evita and the Responsibility of the Storyteller, Cannold uses the word “entrusted” to describe how a story being told should be held. Cannold is dedicated to telling Eva Perón’s story accurately, but she is also aware of the need to make it meaningful for this cultural moment in time.

That blend is expressed in her stated intentions for this production:

With Hal Prince’s original production and ongoing research on the ground in Argentina as our north star, our phenomenal team and I will expand upon the ideas we began to explore at NYCC: examining Eva’s story from a female and Argentine perspective, portraying this woman as a humanized icon, and seeing Evita’s troubled teenage years as a dark, problematic backdrop lingering behind her dazzling 20s and 30s.

And yes, Cannold has assembled a truly phenomenal team. Shereen Pimentel is stunning as Evita, luminous and voiced for a big role like this one. Costars Omar Lopez-Cepero (Che,) Gabriel Burrafato (Magaldi) and Caesar Samayoa (Perón) are all solid. The choreography (Emily Maltby and Valeria Solomonoff) is laced with tango, creating an essential Argentinian mood and tone. The set designed by Jason Sherwood makes its statement even before the production has begun. The audience walks in to see a framed stage, readying us for the historical account that is about to unreel. Within that frame, levitating ghostlike above a sea of commemorative flowers, is Eva’s signature white gown. Apotheosis after all plays a major part in the Eva Perón story, and this is an auspicious visual start. Both the set and the subtle, gray-toned costuming (Alejo Vietti) lean into the minimal and the understated until those few key scenes erupt that need excess. These moments are pulled off effortlessly, and the dramatic contrast is memorable.

Evita is not an obvious choice for Cannold. At 29, she is already a major talent with a huge career ahead of her. Eva Perón still carries a third rail charge, and some people won’t go anywhere near her legacy. What’s more, plenty of theater pundits are quick to dismiss Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice productions as forgettable relics from the 70’s. (Adam Gopnik’s 2018 piece in New Yorker magazine was titled, “Did Andrew Lloyd Webber Ruin the Musical or Rescue it?)

But what stands out for me in this production is that Cannold is listening to what speaks to her, personally and deeply. She once acknowledged that “I see so much of Eva Perón’s insane and tireless ambition in myself and my peers that telling her story has become a way to reflect on our own stories.” That’s just one aspect of the connection Cannold clearly feels with this enigmatic spector from Argentine’s complicated past.

I agree with Rick Rubin: “The ecstatic is our compass, pointing to our true north.” It is an artist’s best GPS system for finding the way to those new and undiscovered landscapes. Cannold and Laufer may also have touched into the spirit of that other wise counsel from Rubin: “Art is far more powerful than our plans for it.”

Omar Lopez-Cepero (Che) and Shereen Pimentel (Eva) in Evita at American Repertory Theater. Credit Nile Scott Studio.