Treefall opens Thurs., July 30 at 8 pm. Performances continue Fri.-Sat., 8 pm; Sun., 3 pm; through Sept. 6. Rogue Machine in Theatre Theater is located at 5041 Pico Blvd., LA, CA 90019. Tickets are $25 and may be purchased by calling (323) 960-7774 or at online.
“Theatre is about communication, as all art must be,” says John Perrin Flynn, Artistic Director of Rogue Machine Theatre. “Theatre is supposed to be about the relationship between the people in the seats and the people on the stage and those people behind the scenes who made what’s on the stage what it is.”
Rogue Machine has very quickly made a presence for itself in the Los Angeles performing arts community by establishing just such relationships. It’s mission, to “nurture new works and introduce works new to Los Angeles” which “mirror and examine contemporary culture” draws audiences away from the comfortable classics and revivals many other theatre companies are doing. Listening to Flynn, it’s clear Rouge Machine is driven by a philosophy, an idealism, rooted in the importance of art as speaking to the community. “I am certain that the work of artists who have a passion to communicate is important, that they have to do that work, that they have to find an audience for that work.”
But finding that audience and getting new work its deserved attention hasn’t been easy. “Starting Rogue Machine was a challenge: how are we going to build an audience? How does a theatre both promise that audience that it’s worth coming to see what they’re doing and then deliver? How do we keep theatre vibrant? How do we do that in this town?”
One of the greater challenges was finding new work that spoke with the same power as the classics. “I had fallen under the false assumption that there weren’t terrific writers writing today,” Flynn admits, an assumption influenced by his past working in television. “That’s what I heard: Where are the playwrights of today? They all do TV or movies. But as I started to do more research, I found out that’s not true at all.”
One such playwright of today is Henry Murray, Rogue Machine’s own Literary manager and playwright of the new play Treefall, directed by Flynn.
Tania Verafield and West Liang
Treefall is the story of three boys attempting to survive in a post-apocalytic future after an ecological disaster. “It’s subject matter is so extraordinary because it takes place at the end of the world,” says Flynn. ‘They exist in the vestiges of our culture, the shards of our culture. Their view of our world is like a jigsaw puzzle put together wrong.” In order to survive parent and peer-less, the boys configure themselves into a makeshift family unit: the oldest takes the role of father, the middle becomes the mother, and the youngest the baby. While this system allows them to survive into their twenties, as the play finds them, their roles have grown tedious and survival is no longer a satisfying end in itself. “In a way they’re living in a prison of their own making. The oldest is plagued by inaction. He’s kept these people alive, but he believes that what works is all that can work and he can’t change,” Flynn says, then adds wryly: “sound familiar?”
Like in a prison, gender confusion and sex games blur the lines of the relationships, especially as the youngest begins to see his place as the third wheel and to fall in love with the father figure. The boys must further question their roles when a stranger appears and complicates things. “The fourth person gives them an opportunity to change.” But, in such a constricted atmosphere with tensions running high, “It can’t help but in the end explode.”
Part drama, part adventure story, part parable for our modern world of ecological insensitivity, the play reflects society without preaching a message or demanding change. Flynn sees those demands the work of leaders and politicians, not the work of artists. “Art is to say here, look at this. This is what we’re doing. And you can draw your own conclusions.” The play is, at its core, “a play about passion. The traveler is a person who is passionate about living their life to its fullest in the time that’s left to live.”
Just such passion is the driving impetus behind Rogue Machine Theatre and Flynn. “All we can do is try,” he says. “Our idea right now is to do these kind of plays and see if we can reinvigorate theatre, at least for ourselves.”
Click Below to watch a video interview with John Perrin Flynn:
To submit scripts for consideration: “There is a way to submit plays to us. We are interested in new plays, we are interested in new playwrights, we are interested in old playwrights with new plays.” According to Flynn the process is slow and volunteer based, but Rogue Machine is always seeking new voices with something to say. Visit their WEBSITE CONTACT PAGE for more information on submitting.
Feature image of Brian Norris and Brian Pugach and story image by John Perrin Flynn
