ABC Project auteur Annie Lesser is a woman who spreads herself thin. At times, too thin.
By day Lesser is a career photojournalist, making her living in the increasingly precarious world of online media. The kind of work that almost pays enough to live in Los Angeles, but not really.
At night Lesser is a one-woman immersive theatre company: writing, directing, producing and promoting her own work. Last year she began the starkly ambitious ABC Project with the goal of creating 26 separate immersive experiences, each inspired by a location that started with a different letter of the alphabet. In order.
(It’s that last bit that tells you how much Lesser likes her creative limitations. She’s also the force behind the Infinitely Dinner Society, which means she’s undertaking two creative quests, minimum, at any given time.)
After trying for months to find a place to park a dumpster (as in “D is for…”) Lesser cut bait and zeroed in on Pasadena’s Stark Spirits Distillery, and the result is what has to be her most personal show yet.
Billed as an experiment in 360-degree storytelling, D(istillery) had Lesser warning her usual patrons that this wasn’t going to be as immersive as they are used to.
The warning wasn’t necessary.
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D(istillery) begins with our narrator closing the steel rolling door that opens up onto the Pasadena industrial park where Stark Spirits makes its home. For a brief moment she talks to us like we’re there for the company tour. Which wouldn’t take too long, walking wise, as the whole of the operation of this craft distillery is right there all around us. (They’re currently making orange brandy, and the place smells ridiculously divine.)
That conceit drops away almost instantly as two other narrators emerge from the office, each a reflection of the original — finishing her sentences and carrying on her themes. In a heartbeat I had the sense that this is how Lesser sees herself: divided up as life pulls her in so many directions that she needs to be different people.
A sentiment that all too many of us carry around wherever we go.
What follows is a weaving in and out of layers: the narrators are a prismatic refraction of some central figure, perhaps Lesser herself. The click between the facts of a working distillery and the seemingly semi-autobiographical stories that are punctuated by touch. Sometimes strange, but for the most part gentle.
(One part, where a performer stuck a participant’s finger in his mouth for the duration of another performer’s monologue, seemed to cause some distress if the look on the unsuspecting guest’s face was any indicator. She appeared to recover quickly, however.)
Lesser’s poetic voice is even more forward than it was at the last iteration of the ABC Project, C(ovell). Here the riffing on the process of turning produce into alcohol is exploited for every emotional metaphor distilling can sustain. Yet it is never forced. The weight of the language held firmly by the space and the actors together, creating something that’s more than your usual indie theatre piece. Words following form following function. Until only something true remains.
The necessity of trashing her dumpster dreams seems to have given Lesser the permission to unlock a deeper force. A standout segment of the piece is a kinetic exploration of a relationship between mother and child. The emotional scar lines illustrated clearly through the words, movement, and direct connection of the actors and audience.
Immersive theatre is more than byzantine plots and the landscapes to match. At its core is the most fundamental connection between speakers and listeners — verbal or otherwise-where the lines blur as to who is whom. While D(istillery) hews to a more traditional theatrical role of audience as listeners, the signal has rarely come through with such clarity and resonance. All thanks to Lesser’s impeccable immersive instincts.
D(istillery) completes its sold out run at Stark Spirits Distillery in Pasadena this weekend. No extension has been announced.
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