“The Shape She Makes” Makes Movement Matter

“If science teaches you one thing, it’s that everything and everyone is alive,” Quincy tells her class of rambunctious kids in “The Shape She Makes,” a dance-narrative production that opened Wednesday, April 9th, at the OBERON. Quincy (Finnerty Steeves) then proceeds to animate the very chairs and pencils in the children’s hands by describing tiny molecules in constant, imperceptible motion. The rest of the lively production is wrought with just as much fluidity; almost every prop in the production is composed of dancers, and often narrative scenes are conveyed only through dance. Indeed, movement is at the core of each theatrical intention. Each cast member emphasizes again and again the importance of movement and change in storytelling as they collectively unravel an emotional, precise tale of a woman who sees change everywhere and yet cannot change herself. “The Shape She Makes” is a world premiere that will play here in Cambridge until April 27. Its complicated narrative and performance structure succeeds because creative directors Jonathan Bernstein and Susan Misner ambitiously create moments of intrigue and emotion within each scene.

Along with his partner, choreographer, and performer Misner, director and writer Bernstein brings “The Shape She Makes” to life with incredible energy. Misner’s choreography feels honest and true to the characters who move through the story; repeated motions of the dancers at times anticipate and echo the movements of other characters onstage so that performers are united in conveying the story. Dancers alternate between sitting in the audience area that surrounds the stage on three sides and dancing and acting in the center floor space. The dancers’ flawless transitions between movements and scenes—even when the narrative jumps between characters and time periods—hold the storyline together. With such a complicated temporal arc, even the difference between a raspy voice for an older version of a character and a straight back for the younger version makes a scene comprehendible. The show takes place in three separate decades. It begins with Quincy as a 40-year-old substitute teacher and switches between Quincy as a nine-year-old genius (played by 13-year-old Sydney K. Penny) and several years before that, when her mother Louise (Misner) meets and conceives a child with Quincy’s father (Seán Martin Hingston).

In this type of experimental theater performance, the audience is often directly involved in the overall impression of the show. “The Shape She Makes” is no exception: upon entering the theater, audience members are asked to write their names on nametags. The production begins when one actress mounts a chair to speak. It is not yet clear where the scene takes place, but the audience’s participation in events onstage becomes urgent when characters thought to be audience members join fellow performers on stage at varying intervals. At each moment, we are  kept questioning the exact nature of our involvement in events playing out in front of us. Are we the students in class when Quincy teaches her class about molecules in motion? Are we innocent bystanders who watch Louise get picked up by guy after guy in the bar? Or are we members of the prestigious math conference who watch Quincy’s speech at the end of the production? Teacher Quincy’s assertion that all matter goes through constant change has been applied to the audience; we wait at each moment to be transformed by the performance to be notified of our role in the action on stage.

Indeed, the production gives a unique and at times painful glimpse into Quincy’s family drama. Two particularly emotional scenes stand out. The first, focused on Louise’s relationship with Quincy’s father, Bernard, and by extension her relationship with his alcoholism, is told entirely through dance. The two meet when Louise is young, optimistic, and she demonstrates her devotion to him with light-hearted and playful movement. The two laugh together and go through repeated motions of going to bed and playing. Though no words are exchanged, Misner’s and Hingston’s bodies are in continual conversation. Then alcohol enters their relationship, and Hingston, as Bernard, succumbs to drink, breaking his routine dance with Misner. Misner throws her body towards Hingston, completely focused on keeping him with her. She makes Louise’s desperation apparent, and when baby Quincy begins to cry and then scream, her emotional decision to comfort her daughter rather than save Bernard is incredibly powerful.

The second stand-out scene takes place four decades later, when Quincy is a substitute teacher still living with her mother. Steeves as Quincy is completely committed to her role, and from the moment she enters the performance space, she lumbers slowly, as if she means to apologize for each step. This older Quincy struggles with her weight, and director Bernstein depicts her complicated relationship with food in a moving scene with dancers acting as a refrigerator. As Steeves eats, the refrigerator comes alive, pulling at her back and eventually forcing the food into Quincy’s mouth. It is a hard scene to watch, but Bernstein makes this type of honesty prevalent throughout the production so that by the end—when Steeves speaks as Quincy in front of a crowd of math enthusiasts—her transformation feels genuine. Her final words define the motivation for telling this story and the importance of listening and watching her tale unfold. Humbly, and with much effort, she says, “I thank you for honoring me. For seeing me.”