This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
Playwright Bess Wohl’s “Small Mouth Sounds” centers around six participants at a guru-led silent retreat. Burning Bones Physical Theatre is staging the mostly wordless show, all about strangers finding connection with a palpable mix of music and movement, through March 31 at Windmill Arts Center in East Point.
Director Frankie Mulinix (they/them), who founded the troupe in 2019, said in a phone interview that what intrigued them about the script is that it explores those emotional moments when words fail you.
“I’m always curious about places in life and in performance where the emotion is so powerful that there are no words for it,” the director said.
Credit: Courtesy of Burning Bones
Credit: Courtesy of Burning Bones
“Small Mouth Sounds,” which was also staged on the Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage in 2019, will benefit from Burning Bones’ unique approach to choreography and acting. Mulinix said the company specializes in Butoh dance theater, a Japanese style that defies easy categorization and features slow, hyper-controlled motion.
“It’s a wonderful challenge for actors to know all that they know about these characters and to find alternate ways to bring all of that forth without exposition or lines spoken,” Mulinix said. “Because Burning Bones Physical Theater is a Butoh-based theater company focused upon movement and extended vocal work, this script perfectly lends itself to that. There’s a lot of opportunity for wailing and crying.”
Additionally, the performers were guided to define their characters and how they would react and move at specific emotional beats, including sensuality, amazement and disgust. Mulinix guided them with the Rasaboxes technique, developed by acting teacher Richard Schechner to enhance an actor’s emotional, vocal and movement range.
Musician Mykal Alder June was brought into the project as a collaborator to create songs that underscored and enhanced the emotions contained within the play.
“Each of the musical pieces and pieces of movement in the show happen during really heightened emotion,” June said. “For each of the pieces of music I created for the show, I was working from the script and the emotion we were trying to evoke, like anger or sorrow. I used that as a jumping-off point for the music.”
June, who improvised live guitar accompaniment for theater during last year’s “Madhouse” at the Atlanta Fringe Festival, found this project with Burning Bones to be a different, more involved process.
“With this one, it’s composed, recorded and very intentional,” June said. “Frankie and I got to have a lot of back-and-forth. I would bring in a piece, and Frankie would give notes on it, then I would go back and revise. That was interesting for me as someone who usually works solo — to have a collaborator who works in a much different medium than I do. We were mindful of one another’s work. It was really cool.”
Credit: Courtesy of Burning Bones
Credit: Courtesy of Burning Bones
Mulinix praised June’s abilities, saying she incorporated moments of the choreography already developed by the performers into the new music.
“June had this huge undertaking,” Mulinix said. “When she brings the songs in the room, inspired by these emotions, the cast’s eyes light up with this inspiration. That’s new for me as a choreographer because I’m used to there being a pre-existing soundtrack. She is magic!”
June said she is amazed by the performers as well.
“This time out as a composer feels a bit different because it’s not extemporaneous — it’s intentional,” said the musician. “Bringing a piece into a room and seeing people move to it for the first time, or 15th, has been really, really cool.”
The cast includes Damian Jason White, Emily Zart, Thomas Bell, Holly Stevenson, Sharon C. Carelock, Jaborice Knight and Kat Stoneback.
“‘Small Mouth Sounds’ is really about people,” Mulinix said. “It’s about six strangers at a retreat and the personas that people bring versus who they really are — and how those personas start to fracture. What I love about this play is that everyone comes in wanting something, but very few of them end in a place where you think they’re going to get it.”
Burning Bones, which received a Reiser Atlanta Artists Lab grant from the Alliance Theatre last year, uses performers with nontraditional bodies and backgrounds, including disabled and queer performers, to see how different capabilities and influences affect the movement work. Mulinix said Atlanta audiences who are eager to discover something new that takes risks should check out “Small Mouth Sounds.”
“I think we are stronger when we know what makes us unique,” Mulinix said. “And the more that we dive into that uniqueness, the more that we have something really vital and valuable to offer the public.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“Small Mouth Sounds”
Presented by Burning Bones Physical Theatre. Through March 31. $25-$50 Windmill Arts Center, 2823 Church St., East Point.
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Benjamin Carr is an ArtsATL editor-at-large who has contributed to the publication since 2019 and a member of the American Theatre Critics Association, the Dramatists Guild, the Atlanta Press Club and the Horror Writers Association. His writing has been featured in podcasts for iHeartMedia, onstage as part of the Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival and online in The Guardian. His debut novel, Impacted, was published by The Story Plant.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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