Dirk Etchison and Ann Hearn in "Dreams of the Washer King"

In the spring of 2010, I was completely immersed in directing the LA premiere of David Rambo’s global warming/love story The Ice-Breaker, at Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, when another play suddenly entered my life.

I had recently reconnected with Giovanna Sardelli – an old friend from the UNLV theater department — via Facebook to discover she was directing a new play at the Cherry Lane in New York called Dreams Of The Washer King, by Christopher Wall, for the Playwrights Realm. Fascinated by the play title, I contacted the playwright and he sent me the play. I knew immediately that I wanted to direct it.

Director Andre Barron on the set

I contacted my friends and colleagues, artistic director James Mellon and managing director Kevin Bailey at the NoHo Arts Center, to pitch the show to them. I had just finished working on a couple of projects there, and we all agreed that this would be a wonderful opportunity for a bigger collaboration together. After several discussions with the playwright, we secured the rights to the production and were actively pursuing a $10,000 grant being put up by the producers of Playwrights Realm to subsidize the next production of this play. But we wanted to move forward on the show more quickly than I think they had anticipated, and negotiations fell through. The timing just wasn’t right for that marriage.

Last year, Theatre 40 artistic director David Hunt Stafford asked if I had any new plays I wanted to bring in and direct. After about an hour on the phone speaking passionately about the play, I realized that David had not said a word. I took a deep breath and asked “David, are you there?” He said, “Yes, Andre. I am intrigued and fascinated. Let’s do it!” I sent him the script and it was chosen for the season. The play moved forward with ease and purpose this time.

Aaron Shand and Ann Hearn

Ryan, our 15-year-old protagonist, is a devoted fan of science fiction and Isaac Asimov. He creeps around the house with a makeshift tape recorder looking for “spectral signs” of his deceased father in the house he shares with his bank teller mother in a small blue-collar town in Maine. When a mysterious stranger named Wade and his teenage daughter Elsie move in down the road, an “unlikely confluence of events” occur that shatter their lives and unravel the mysteries that plague them.

Christopher Wall’s work fuses evocative visual imagery, gripping stories and a deep understanding of the psychological traps we set for ourselves.  Dreams Of The Washer King deals with the poignancy of regret and the human need to remember what keeps us trapped reliving our choices, haunted by the possibility of different outcomes. Wall is a master of time, manipulating the non-linear narrative forward in new and amazing ways. A curious sense of the supernatural and even fantastical elements run through this play, capturing my imagination.

On a personal level, I could relate to this story. I felt I knew these characters, and my own history would facilitate the actors’ needs and inform how to tell this very compelling story. Who can’t relate to wanting to go back to the past and change the outcome of a situation?

We all do that. Our minds take us right back to the proverbial fork in the road, to that unresolved place that lies ruminating and in wait for our next unexpected visit. We go back there for many reasons. We seek answers, we punish ourselves, we look to be healed or pursue our redemption.

Jennifer Levinson and Aaron Shand

All of those events are played out in a very theatrical way on Wall’s surreal and haunted landscape of time and memory. One of the characters says, “It is a cursed blessing to live divided between worlds.” That was the key into this play for me. I think people will see themselves in this play and relate on a very human level. I know that I did.

Last year, I directed Fernando Richardson’s Treacherous Brain at the Open Fist Theatre Company. That play had two very intriguing scenes that book-ended the story that were ambiguously surreal in tone but ultimately informed the past and present of the story. I had so much fun staging those scenes that I found myself looking forward to this project, where I had an opportunity to explore these ideas even more. Dreams Of The Washer King supplied the canvas for that, and I got to stretch myself as a director. It is not a traditional memory play at all. An epigram at the beginning of the script states that “the border between the past, as in our own lives, has no firm boundary.” This play lives on different terms and has its own set of rules. The playwright is bending time from beginning to end.

Christopher flew in from New York to work with us. It was great to spend time with the source of it all. He was very generous, had a lot of insight, and we got a lot of work done very quickly. I have a solid production team, with inventive designers and a dream cast of actors who are ready to present  Dreams of the Washer King.

Dreams of the Washer King, West Coast premiere, presented by Theatre 40. Opens Jan. 26.  Plays Thurs.-Sat. 8 pm; Sun. 2 pm. Through Feb. 26. Tickets: $23-25. Reuben Cordova Theatre on the campus of Beverly Hills High School, 241 S. Moreno Dr., Beverly Hills. 310-364-0535. www.theatre40.org.

***All Dreams of the Washer King production photos by Ed Krieger

Among Andre Barron’s credits are Fernando Richardson’s Treacherous Brain, Some Of My Parts, Rosen’s Son, Bedside Companion, A Death In Bethany, The Ice-Breaker, and many more.