New Playwright, Unexpected Venue, and an Emphasis on Play
First Take Co.’s next theatrical venture in Knoxville is more of an adventure, blending the beloved tabletop roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons with deep emotional introspection. Director and Founder E.G. Roeder brings NYC-based playwright Charles Green’s latest play, In The Castle of Eternal Sunset, to Fable Hollow Bookshoppe on January 16–17. I sat down with Roeder and Green for a quick chat about this new production and the value of interactive theatre and pop culture to Knoxville audiences.
Playwright Charles Green claims that Castle is not just another Dungeons & Dragons play; more than Qui Nguyen’s popular She Kills Monsters, Castle incorporates “the dramaturgy of D&D and dice mechanics to build a play in-the-moment that incorporates participation in forms that are a part of pop culture.” His playwriting philosophy moves away from the traditional textual forms of theatre, drawing attention to spectacle, play, chance, and audience engagement through collective imagination. He wants theatre to be “accessible to the masses by featuring pop culture aspects” that many are familiar with and that will encourage an appreciation of theatre as something we actually do in our personal lives, like playing a game of D&D. Both Green and Roeder find that plays like Castle can get more people, especially young people in our neighboring rural communities, involved in dramatic arts.
Castle is a story about the emotions of male friendships. While there are many a tale about the bonds between young men, Green says that many of those stories are steeped in “stereotypes about macho-ness” that only scratch the surface of what male friendships can be. His play addresses what he feels to be at the heart of the game Dungeons & Dragons: “little moments of change that take place in close relationships that bump each person in different directions, a delicate balance between choice and chance.” It’s these moments of chance that break away from the structures of traditional theatre that keep audiences firmly behind the fourth wall, a break away that both Green and Roeder feel should be more prominent in the Knoxville theatre scene.
Director Roeder describes Castle as a unique blend of traditional theatre, poetry, and audience participation, “engaging in an interactive mode that is not quite immersive theatre.” It asks a bit more of a select group of audience members, who voluntarily choose to participate, than a regular play, but the participation is not improvisational and asks the audience to come together as a group to create an emotional cadence and collective experience of the production. Playwright Green notes the audience’s importance to his play is to create a moment of “communal grieving and remembering;” it is the backstory of these two boys’ lives that are revealed through the audience’s participation in the production. And because Castle is gamified, relying on the roll of the die like in Dungeons & Dragons, every production is unique. Green says that “each story will be different, and there is a sense of missing-ness or loss because not every portion of the backstory is read by the audience; the experience is determined by the roll of the die.”
Castle has been produced at The Brick Theatre in Brooklyn and will make its way to Knoxville at Fable Hollow Bookshoppe on January 16–17. Roeder is excited once again to produce another site-responsive work in a beloved community space; he believes Fable Hollow is a unique location and works well with this production because of their existing community and relationships. In the Castle of Eternal Sunset will be presented in early January by First Take Co. For ticketing and more information, contact [email protected] or visit their website https://www.firsttakeco.com
