Life and Times - Episode 7

Life and Times uses a verbatim transcript of over 16 hours of recorded telephone interviews as found material to construct an extremely ambitious genre-bending spectacle – the tale generated from one simple question, asked of a friend: “can you tell me your life story?”  But -- for the first time – in Episode 7, there is one important twist: Though in the original recorded telephone conversation, Kristin Worrall narrates the story of her own life, in this episode – that narrative is finally shifted into the hands of others. First person becomes third person, as the company struggles to take on the form and structure of perhaps American cinema’s greatest masterwork: Citizen Kane.

Working within the conventions of old Hollywood black and white film -- Episode 7 starts with a newsreel recap of the events thus far (Episodes 1-6) and then transitions into a series of “interviews” with characters from Kristin’s life, who continue the narration of through the end of college and foreign study abroad, to the start of adult life as a struggling artist in New York City.

The script for this project called for a cast of over 100 characters and was set in such exotic locations as Athens, Rome, Budapest, Krakow, Portugal, Amsterdam, and New York City. We shot it all in an apartment in Queens using rear screen projection, 4 boxes of wigs, and a cast of only 8 full time players.

With hot burning passion and increasingly limited means, Nature Theater of Oklahoma attempts to take on Hollywood and the French New Wave and the entire history of cinema as we know it: jump cuts, dubbed audio, rear screen projection, tracking shots, racked focus!  This episode has it all and more!

You can watch the trailer for this project on our video page.

A production of Nature Theater of Oklahoma, commissioned and developed in residence with Live Arts Bard at the Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, with producing support from King’s Fountain.  Additional support provided by FringeArts and The Wyncote Foundation. Episode 7 has also been made possible in part by a grant from The Map Fund, supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Conceived and Directed by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Screenplay by Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska Based on stories told by Kristin Worrall Featuring Ilan Bachrach, Asli Bulbul, Kelly Copper, Gabel Eiben, Daniel Gower, Robert M. Johanson, Pavol Liska, Dany Naierman, Peter Nigrini, Elisabeth Conner Skjærvold, and Kristin Worrall Camera Pavol Liska Editor/Foley Sound Kelly Copper Director of Photography Peter Nigrini Art Director/Production Manager Dany Naierman

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Screenings

September 17, 2019, Philadelphia Fringe Festival, Lightbox Film Center  Philadelphia

March 3, 2017 Segal Center Film Festival on Theatre and Performance, Martin Segal Theatre, New York December 18, 2016 Kaaitheater, Brussels, Belgium (w/ Ep. 8) September 24, 2016 Crossing the Line Festival and Anthology Film Archives, NY (w/ Eps. 8&9) May 2016, Španski Borci Cultural Centre, Ljubliana Slovenia (w/ Eps. 8&9) January 2016 Stadtkino Wien, Vienna, Austria (w/ Eps. 8&9) November 2015 The Richard B. Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Bard College, NY (w/ Eps. 8&9) October 2015 Hebbel Theater, Berlin, Germany (w/ Episodes 8&9) October 2015 steirischer herbst festival, Graz, Austria (w/ Episodes 8&9) (premiere)