{"id":11034,"date":"2019-04-03T08:23:25","date_gmt":"2019-04-03T12:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=11034"},"modified":"2020-02-09T18:29:44","modified_gmt":"2020-02-09T23:29:44","slug":"leonora-double-edge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2019\/04\/03\/leonora-double-edge\/","title":{"rendered":"Leonora Carrington\u2019s Magic Realist Paintings Come Alive at Double Edge Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:<\/strong>\u00a0Double Edge Theatre is performing “Leonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro”<\/a> again on\u00a0Feb. 14 and 15, 2020, at its theater at\u00a0948 Conway Road,\u00a0Ashfield, Massachusetts. The company will also be presenting a free “Laboratory for Critical Creative Practice”<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0reception at\u00a0Northeastern University’s Ryder Theatre Lab, Ryder Hall, Boston, on\u00a0Feb. 24, 2020, \u00a0from 6 to 7 p.m.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro\u201d<\/a>\u2014presented by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield from April 5 to 7 and 12 to 14, 2019\u2014is like an incantation. Though ritual and spectacle, stilters, an aerialist and characters masked like Venetian Carnival, the troupe brings to life Leonora Carrington\u2019s magic realist paintings of a moon-faced giantess, masked figures, mysterious kitchens, glowing eggs, curious beasts, galloping horses, and souls wandering eerie gardens.<\/p>\n

The visionary, expressionist show is inspired by Carrington\u2019s art, writings, life and her mentorship of filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, when they were both in Mexico City in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

The New York Times wrote<\/a> in March 2018, when the show debuted at Montclair State University in New Jersey, that it \u201cfeels like a peek into an expansive world\u2014a hallucinatory, symbol-heavy tour of Carrington\u2019s fervid mind.\u201d The subject also inspired Double Edge’s\u00a0outdoor pageant<\/a> across the company\u2019s rural property last October.<\/p>\n

\"Jennifer<\/a>
Jennifer Johnson (left) and Carlos Uriona play the title characters in \u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carrington (1917-2011) was the daughter of a wealthy English textiles magnate. She studied art, met the married German surrealist artist Max Ernst and ran away with him to Paris. There they mingled with Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Paul Eluard and other surrealists. As World War II began devouring Europe, they were living in southern France and making art. Ernst was arrested by the French for being a suspicious German, but was released. When the Nazis invaded, he fled to the United States. Carrington went to Spain, where she had a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. After her release, she fled to Mexico where she spent much of the rest of her life, befriending the Spanish surrealist painter Remedios Varo, becoming active in the feminist movement, and making curious, mystical, dreamy paintings for decades.<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI am as mysterious to myself as I am to everyone else,\u201d Carrington (played by Jennifer Johnson) says in the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cLeonora & Alejandro\u201d makes manifest the visions in her paintings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been working in this psycho-physical-imaginative way for close to 37 years. We work a lot with visual arts to make them come alive in a visceral way. We use images as our primary way of storytelling. So I think we were ready to go into this world of magic and conjuring,\u201d Double Edge founder and Artistic Director Stacy Klein says. \u201cTo me it\u2019s fundamental that when the spectator is with us it\u2019s not virtual, it\u2019s actual, it\u2019s alive. The experience that\u2019s happening there is what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In the show, Carrington\u2019s father appears and torments her. A psychiatric hospital doctor in a white coat sticks her with a hypodermic needle: \u201cYou\u2019re going to have to overcome your diseased imagination.\u201d Carrington recounts soldiers raping her. A bird accompanies her. A growling creature is born from some amniotic sac. Carrington stirs a caldron and marvels at the cosmos. She says she knows of no religion that does not declare women feeble, useless or \u201cgenerally inferior to men.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, it\u2019s about courage, the courage to create in a reality that may not invite creation, the courage to create in different circumstances that you face. And I think Leonora Carrington is inspiring because she took the hardships and traumas of her life and made magic. I think it\u2019s about freedom, the freedom of our souls, our spirit. And I think there\u2019s something healing about people who find that power to go into themselves, particularly women who don\u2019t succumb to circumstances or daily life,\u201d Klein says. \u201cIt\u2019s about a very powerful woman who\u2019s mentoring somebody who becomes a very powerful man in his art. \u2026 We don\u2019t frequently see women mentors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cHow do you know it is not I who am dreaming you?\u201d Carrington asks the Jodorowsky character (played by Carlos Uriona) in the play.<\/p>\n

\u201cStop it, Leonora,\u201d Jodorowsky replies.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may not believe in magic, but something very strange is happening in this very room,\u201d Carrington replies. \u201cYou are disappearing before my very eyes. I can\u2019t even remember your name.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The show risks presenting Carrington as mentally ill and akin to a witch, staring down malicious stereotypes of women, endeavoring to resuscitate them, reclaim them. (\u201cWomen & Magic,\u201d a discussion of \u201cwomen\u2019s alchemical, magical and spiritual creation process and how this approach often remains hidden,\u201d is scheduled at the theater for April 14.)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have forced these powers into the inner hidden realm, and not just hidden because of the intimacy required, but because women are so busy defending themselves against violence that they can\u2019t defend their practice of witchcraft or spirituality or magic,\u201d Klein says. \u201cSo what I\u2019m saying and what we\u2019re saying is this is part of the freedom we can imagine. We can use all the faculties we have. We have to have courage to do that that\u2019s all. And look at the world, what\u2019s happened without that imagination.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously:<\/strong>
\nOct. 20, 2018: Enter Leonora Carrington\u2019s Surreal Paintings In Double Edge\u2019s Outdoor Spectacle<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Jennifer<\/a>
Jennifer Johnson in \u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\u201cLeonora<\/a>
\u201cLeonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro,” a rehearsal by Double Edge Theatre at their Farm Center in Ashfield, April 1, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPDATE:\u00a0Double Edge Theatre is performing “Leonora & Alejandro: La Maga y el Maestro” again on\u00a0Feb. 14 and 15, 2020, at its theater at\u00a0948 Conway Road,\u00a0Ashfield, Massachusetts. The company will also be presenting a free “Laboratory for Critical Creative Practice”\u00a0and\u00a0reception at\u00a0Northeastern University’s Ryder Theatre Lab, Ryder Hall, Boston, on\u00a0Feb. 24, 2020, \u00a0from 6 to 7 p.m. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108,110],"tags":[466,465],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11034"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11034"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15263,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11034\/revisions\/15263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}