Ash Land – Transatlantic Love Affair

“I’m going there to see my mother.”

The creators of Red Resurrected and Ballad of the Pale Fisherman present a desert Cinderella, scored by a slide guitar. Where bones bake in the sun and water is precious, a motherless child finds her identity.

Yet another of my five most anticipated returns of previous pre-Fringe Top Ten artists. Isobel Nelson and company just make me happy to watch theater. It’s so ridiculously simple, how do we keep forgetting it? All you need are actors and a good story. No set, no props, no special effects. In less than three minutes, with a little bluegrass musical accompaniment, these people sewed seed in a field. Then they laid down in that field and pointed up at the stars. Then their pointing arms and hands became the waving wheat full grown. Then certain actors became the farmers threshing the wheat for harvest. Then a mother, father and daughter gather for a family portrait. Then the mother withdraws and the father and daughter are tossing dirt into the mother’s grave. Then the girl is visiting the mother’s grave and her flinty stepmother appears nearby and tells the girl to cut it out. (She’s smoking an imaginary cigarette, so you know she’s evil.) Each stage image like turning the page in a live action photograph album. Each stage image evoking the passage of time. The combined images creating a place and a community and the beginning of a story. All in under three minutes. Ballad of the Pale Fisherman, Red Resurrected, now to that list, we add Ash Land. Can’t wait.