I have a confession to make: This is not my first magical realism play.
In fact, when Andrew asked me to direct Bureau of Missing Persons, reading the script felt like a homecoming.
The very first full-length play I ever directed, The Old Man in the Woods by Brooklyn playwright Gina Femia, was a play with a similar worldview–a story where improbable things happen because of the power of the human heart. Laws of physics are broken because of an emotional connection.
The impossible becomes possible because there is a truth bigger than logic.
I love this mode of storytelling. I love a story that stands astride the boundaries of how we think we understand the world. One foot stands among characters that feel recognizable–they aren’t the broad caricatures of fairy tales, they’re people like us. The other foot stands rooted in the fantastical possibilities that can open up when we let our imaginations off the leash for 90 minutes with no intermission.
It is the storytelling of the possible. It is a way to examine the truth of the heart, and bypass the rigidity of the mind.
Bureau of Missing Persons by Lila Rose Kaplan is just such a story. Rick Pender of CityBeat notes that “the evocative play’s fanciful plot takes amusing leaps that lack logic but make emotional sense.” This is no accident! This is exactly what I love about Kaplan’s tale of loss and redemption: it gives you permission to wonder. To puzzle. To connect.
Because that’s what it’s all about, in the end: how new universes open up when we allow ourselves to connect.
In this season of beginnings and endings, of traditions, of emotional baggage, I hope you’ll join us for an evening of possibility. Let your imagination fly with us for about 90 minutes or so.
Take this illogical leap with us. I’m willing to bet you’ll find something surprising and delightful in this tale of how we heal.
I can’t wait to see you at the theatre.
With love,
Tammy
p.s. Need tickets? Here you go: https://know.tixato.com/buy/bureau-of-missing-persons–2
Tamara Winters is Associate Artistic Director of Know Theatre of Cincinnati.