Photo credit: Rebecca Henriksen
Written and directed by: Ioana Jucan
Concept design: Ioana Jucan
Performed by: Ria T. DiLullo, Siqi Sun, Casey Robbins, (on film) Richard Manning
Assistant Director: Ria T. DiLullo
Scenic Design: Rebecca Henriksen
Video Design: Julian Francis Park & Adrian Randall
Sound Design: Alex Eizenberg
Lighting Design: Chezev Matthew & Jungmin Lee
Poster Design: Marion Gast
Production Manager: Quyen Ngo
Performed at: Granoff Center for the Creative Arts (Providence, RI)
Performance Dates: March 2012
The Deaths of Pan springs from and re-works the myth of the mortal god of nature, human nature, and prophecy, Pan (whose name is at the root of the word “panic”) and the nymph Echo. It proposes an experience of thought presented through the metaphor of a love story set in contemporary Providence.
Through playing and playing-pretend, Pan and Echo search for ways to live (and live through) their separation, navigating different structures of nostalgia, looking for new beginnings and newly re-imagined pasts. The Deaths of Pan traces their journey together apart in a meditation on how identity evolves over time between first and second nature, between artificial constructs and natural impulses, when nature comes to be understood as that which is always slightly ahead of us. In this way, the piece seeks to express a contemporary myth of (re-)creation. For, today, the place of myth is no place, but it might emerge where one least expects it. And “the real must be fictionalized in order to be thought” (Jacques Rancière). But what is the proper way to do it? What part do the proper, and the matter of property (and propriety), come to play in this process of fictionalization?
– “I’m not a skeptic, but I’ve learned to doubt…” Thus speaks Pan. Will s/he be able to regain belief in the world? –
This production was made possible in part by a grant from the Brown University Creative Arts Council and by a Production Workshop New Works Grant.
Press: http://www.browndailyherald.com/2012/03/22/mythic-plays-leave-audiences-spellbound/#.UB-VVBzsvog
Additional documentation: https://technomyth.wordpress.com/the-deaths-of-pan/
Ioana B. Jucan 