Performance of 'Sea Change'

‘Sea Change’: Moving, intellectual performance at BIG ARTS

www.sanibel-captiva-islander.com
Thursday, March 29, 2007 — Time: 10:59:45 AM EST
By MARSHA WAGNER, Center Stage

BIG ARTS OnStage presented a most classy, interesting, intelligent mixed program recently titled “Sea Change: Reversing the Tide.” The performance piece juxtaposes a vast knowledge of environmental science with prose read by author, marine biologist, scientist, environmentalist and founder of The Ocean Alliance, Roger Payne, and links it to the wisdom of poetry performed by author and actress extraordinaire, Lisa Harrow.

Payne, with 40 years experience in marine biology, is best known for his discovery (along with Chatququa’s former president, Scott McVay) of the songs that the humpback whales sing. HIs publications include the book, “Among Whales” and three recordings — “Songs of the Humpback Whale,” “Deep Voices” and “Whales Alive.” He has appeared in over 40 TV documentaries, several of which he wrote and/or presented and he also co-wrote and co-directed the IMAX film “Whales.” One of his National Geographic articles contained a record of whale sounds for which 10.5 million copies were printed — still the largest single order in the history of the recording industry.

Lisa Harrow, the acting half of this married duo, started her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company performing with such luminaries as Judy Dench and other leading lights of that signature outfit. She’s performed in movies — one, in particular, teaming with Glenda Jackson — plus numerous BBC and American TV productions. And, if that weren’t enough, Lisa is an author of the environmental handbook, What Can I Do? published in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand.

Using science and poetry, this remarkable duo created “Sea Change,” based on the possibility of environmental world sustainability. It which has been performed in select locations nationwide as well as in New Zealand, and Mexico. This vastly informative program held us enthralled for 90 minutes, as it presented fascinating, well-paced, instructive and significant data in an entertaining manner. The performance was followed by a Q&A session headed by Kristie Anders, educational director of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation.

Beautifully yet simply mounted, “Sea Change” was performed in a setting created with several potted feathery palms and two lecterns, and Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” playing in the background, followed by the sounds of incoming surf and the songs of the humpbacks. This classically simple set proved to be the ideal frame for this ecologically based presentation.

Harrow’s classically trained, mellifluous, full-throated speech had all the color and variation of a large orchestra and created fully envisioned word pictures of nature in the poetry she spoke; and this theater-of-the-mind staging worked equally as well for the soliloquies of Shakespeare as for word from Wendell Berry.

By way of contrast, Payne’s accurate, spot-on narration of hard, down-to-earth scientific facts proved to be the perfect way to focus on how noble man could be in the poetic sense, and what happens to that potential nobility when it is corrupted by greed and self-centeredness. But even in this hard-edged evaluation of the corruption of mankind, and foolhardily disregard of the unquestionable laws of the natural world, there were still solutions… realizations that come from the fact that all lives, man’s included, depend on all other species. Those words were the facts; the poetry put it this way — “The earth is a mote of dust suspended on a sun beam.” Our earthship is pretty fragile and we must do everything within our power to preserve it.

Like the rest of the attendees at “Sea Change,” I was ready to save the planet immediately that night but, instead,I went home and thought, What I can I do to help? Well, first, I’m changing all the light bulbs in my house to the new more efficient kind that burn less wattage. Second, I’m going to bicycle more around the island and, third — here’s the biggie — I’m going to start looking into forming a food co-op here on the island.

Was “Sea Change” worth attending as well as informative and entertaining? I’ll say it was, but, more than that, it set not only me, but all the audience members to thinking and to take some small steps to save our beautiful world so we can indeed be the noble creatures our creator created us to be.

I would urge every one of you who attended “Sea Change” to help this incredible presentation get seen by as many people as possible. If any of you have clubs, benefits, school functions or the like, find out from BIG ARTS how to get in touch with the authors/performers and bring “Sea Change” to your community. And don’t stop there. Start thinking how YOU can change our island as well as our world, for the better… Each of us in our own way should work on turning the tide and getting our oceans back into a “Sea Change.”

Thank you, BIG ARTS and, especially Jone Schlackman for your dedication and commitment to bringing to Sanibel the best of the best, which is what “Sea Change” represented.

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