We’ve been following the career of Meredith Treinen — as a producer, performer, and director — from the early days of NoPro. These days, when she isn’t collaborating with the Ceaseless Fun theatre collective, she has made striking movement-centric work like 2017’s Grief.
This season she’s teaming back up with one of her Grief collaborators, Juliet Deem, as well as LA immersive veterans like Deanna Noe (Stars in the Night) and Scott Monahan (Agnosia) for a devised exploration of gender identity.
We caught up with her via text and email, to bring you a little peek into the new work, RE-LEASE, tickets for which go on sale on Wednesday, March 13th.
No Proscenium: In a nutshell, what is RE-LEASE?
Meredith Treinen: This piece is really a personal exploration of our own experiences with gender — how we identify with it, how we participate in it, how it effects our every day.
NP: This is a devised piece, and you’re working with collaborators old and new, what’s been surprising about the process?
MT: Oh, so much has surprised me. So much of this process was about conversation and open dialogue about our lives. Emotional intimacy and empathy are always important in any devised rehearsal process, but this piece is really about diving into the personal and I was really surprised at how quickly this group of collaborators was able to connect with each other from the jump.
Often, the conversations we’re having with each other aren’t easy — they’re charged and political and have the potential to insinuate blame and create division — I was lucky to find collaborators who were really up for that part of the process and could engage with and hold space for each other with honesty and kindness. We’re also still uncovering and unpacking — even as most of the devising part of the process is mostly finished, we’re all still making personal revelations about the work and our own reflections on it.
NP: Why explore the gender binary, and what does that mean for you?
MT: When I started thinking about this piece, we were in the middle of the Kavanaugh hearings. I was inexplicably angry and as a result, I was really interested in my own experience with female rage and the infallibility and complicit behavior of the men in my life — men who I considered emotionally progressive and who were often engaging in discussions around gender politics. It became really clear as we started the devising process that there was so much more to unpack, and I became really interested in looking at how I participate in the gender binary — the good, bad and ugly. This piece isn’t about having answers or dictating where we should be headed; I don’t consider it a political piece. At its core it’s about dialogue, conversation and sharing experience. In some ways, it feels like a ritual, to share with each other.
Look for more on RE-LEASE, which begins a two-weekend run on March 29th, later this month and next on NoPro.
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