Diving into Chapter 6 of the Kansas Collection
By the time The Witch — the sixth chapter in The Speakeasy Society’s almost two-year-old serial based on the Oz stories entitled The Kansas Collection — is finished, it’s clear that the story is accelerating towards its endgame.
This latest chapter deals directly with the fallout of last month’s Chapter Five: The Vow, which turned the story on its head by killing off the original Big Bad — the Scarecrow King — and replacing him with the cruel and power mad Phoebe Daring, now styling herself as Ozma, lost princess of Oz.
While the story as a whole has gotten tangled in knots over the course of five chapters and 23 months, The Vow served as a solid jumping on point for new audience members. Chapter Six, however, dives into a plot thread that has been served up primarily to those actively participating with the story’s between episode elements: the paramilitary organization known as Revolt.
Long story short: one of the leaders of Revolt — General Jinjur (the always charismatic Christie Harms) — has been captured and killed by Ozma nee Phoebe. Audience members, by this point pledged to one of the factions vying for control of the Emerald City, have been invited to pay their respects by the head of Revolt, Glinda (Natalie Fryman). Formerly Glinda the Good Witch Before, that is, magic went the way of the dodo in Oz.
The multiple plot thread nature of The Kansas Collection has always presented a conundrum. With only so much time allotted to each chapter — most of the experiences have been 15–20 minutes long — and with four active factions it’s always a danger that some chapters are more engaging than others. It’s akin to reading a long novel with multiple point of view characters: occasionally you just find yourself holding your breath until Tyrion reappears.
The Revolt thread has never been my favorite, and the in-world reason for attending the wake for Jinjur is thin at best. Indeed the calibration on the opening scenes of The Witch feel a bit off. The character (Chynna Skye’s Lavender Pip) who takes us into the episode feels like an odd choice — possibly a beat that will pay off later — and the bulk of the first half feels more like additional world building and exposition than down-the-home-stretch drama.
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Thankfully the turn comes, and once it does the roller coaster sails right on through to the end, bringing two plot lines together and accelerating the overarching story towards what could be the first in a series of corkscrew turns we’re going to get before a planned finale in the tenth chapter.
By design this chapter saves its best imagery and interactive dynamics for last, with the location providing some killer production value and the cast opening up the throttle in a solid final scene. (I’m avoiding spoiling it, even through I really want to.)
In so many ways The Witch is a microcosm of The Kansas Collection as a whole, with the structural issues that plague a four-track linear narrative being off-set by the solid dramatic chops of the company’s acting pool and an increasingly strong sense of production design. This chapter manages to really points towards what the Speakeasy Society could do if they were backed by some major funding and not left to bootstrap every show they do into existence. On the flip side: The choices that the company makes to pay off dedicated audience members is balanced by a high barrier to entry for new blood. Kansas has long been a balancing act, now that we’re this far over the rainbow the tightrope is particularly thin.
With all that said, the best news is for those who are all-in on the tale.
Where we’re left at the end of The Witch is so much stronger and focused than any of the previous Kansas chapters. The company is doubling down on the drama as they aim to pick up the pace and bring the back half of the series to a close in early 2019. With just three more chapters before the planned finale, it feels like we’re in for a lot of high stakes storytelling before they bring it all home.
The Witch plays through September 29th at the ROW DTLA — 777 S. Alameda Street Los Angeles, CA. Tickets are $20.
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