Hot, Hip and on the Verge

A dozen young American companies you need to know

Back to Index: Hot, Hip and on the Verge

THE DIRIGO GROUP

That Burning, Yearning Feeling
by Robert Faires

Most new theatre companies are launched on a surge of desire—and rarely, these days, is it Eugene O'Neill's. But it was a site-specific "reconsideration" of the playwright's Desire Under the Elms, performed on a farm outside the Austin city limits one chilly November, that led to the formation of the dirigo group. Despite the fact that audiences had to find the show in the boonies and contend with frosty noses and amorous goats (not to mention O'Neill's libidinous yarn), this desire (lowercase "d," like the company's moniker), with its real barn, documentary crew interviewing the characters and daredevil acting, quickly became the talk of the town. It was hailed by one critic as "a true theatrical experience" and copped an armload of local theatre awards. On the basis of that success, six of the production's artists—most of them new to Austin—decided to throw in their fortunes together as a company. Exactly what kind of company would prove hard to pin down.

Dirigo swerved from O'Neill to vintage Sam Shepard and Lanford Wilson, then into the knotty moral dramas of Neil LaBute. It veered back to the classics for a Hedda Gabler set in 1950s America, and even careered into Brechtian territory with The Gypsy Chain, an original musical epic (with a cast of 30) based on the life and death of an environmental activist. If it wasn't easy to say what kind of plays dirigo did, it was clear what kind of theatre the group made: theatre with a fresh eye toward its subject matter and the inventiveness and bravery to help its audience see it, and maybe the world, with fresh eyes.

Dirigo's first five years have not been without internal turmoil—some members have departed from Austin—but the group is still a group. The current foursome sharing the mantle of artistic director remain driven by their shared interests, what Judson L. Jones calls "this common idea that theatre is an arena where challenges are made and accepted, where we ask our audiences to put themselves at stake, taking risks with us."

"That mutual desire for visceral response drives us to want to create together," says Ellie McBride. Christa Kimlicko Jones adds, "We've always been a mixture of people who had like desires but different opinions on how to tap into those desires." That's led sometimes to tension, notes Lowell Bartholomee, but an abiding respect for one another's artistic visions and the deep friendships among group members always bring them "back to our senses."

The next dirigo show takes another curve: producing the first drama by a local playwright who isn't a company member. The Jinn, by Kirk Lynn of Austin's Rude Mechanicals, is a story about wishing—which is to say, another aspect of desire. That was dirigo's beginning; that's what endures.

Robert Faires is theatre critic for the Austin Chronicle.

Next: Flaneur Productions, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Order back issues

© - 2006 by Theatre Communications Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.