A local producer and a director will bring Hudson County to the fringe of the off-Broadway world this weekend, when their play “200 Mystical Fictions” premieres as part of the city’s week-long International Fringe Festival. Now in its 11th year, the festival showcases theater, performance art, dance and multimedia acts from across the globe.
This is the first trip to the Fringe for director and Jersey City resident Laura Pestronk. And it is the first venture into theater for Scott Gerber, a Hoboken resident who is the play’s executive producer. “200 Mystical Fictions,” written by New York native Debra L. Siegel, follows Brooke, a young woman living in New York, as she tries to cope with the death of her boyfriend, Jake.
Brooke’s grief leads her to blur the lines of reality and fantasy, and the story watches her weave in and out of the stark reality of New York City and the fantastical version of Japan that she creates in her head.
Frequent trips on the Staten Island ferry and the guidance of an urban samurai help Brooke discover the value of real life.
Local connections
Though it deals with serious subject matter, Director Pestronk describes the work as more of a “dramedy” then pure drama. “There are a lot of semi-comedic, bordering-on-ridiculous moments,” she said.
She explained that much of that amusement comes from the hokey fantasy Japan that Brooke, who has never left the country, creates in her head. Pestronk said she was drawn to the play by the freshness of the script and the challenges she thought it would present.
“It’s been very challenging because it shifts between locations over a dozen times,” Pestronk said. She added that those transitions are often done without fades to dark. “The challenge is keeping consistency and making it clear when she’s in her fantasy world and when she’s in the real world,” she continued.
Pestronk, 22, moved to Jersey City a little over two months ago. She received her B.F.A. from NYU’s Tisch School of the Performing Arts just last year. A native of New York’s Upper East Side, the actress and director said she is eager to explore performances locally, but rehearsals six times a week have kept her from going.
“200 Mystical Fictions” is the first theater project for fellow Hudson County resident Gerber. Also a Tisch Graduate – but from the schools’ production program – Gerber has produced several film and television projects, including “SLOWday,” a 2005 mock-umentary about a local mayoral election. His film “Climbing to the Crest,” about the country’s first union-operated charter school, debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2005. Gerber is a Staten Island native who has lived in Hoboken since 2005. He attended Tottenville High School with author Siegel and the two often worked together as producers during high school.
“It’s been great that after all of these years as friends and doing non-professional shows we could put this together and do something bigger,” Gerber said, adding that the production team is ultimately looking for a long-term stage run.
Bringing it to the stage
Siegel, 24, graduated with a B.A. in English and Theater from Princeton in 2005. Unlike Brooke, Siegel has been to the real Japan, and after a year-long stint there in 2006, she returned to the United States determined to see “200 Mystical Fictions” – the play she had written for her senior thesis – produced.
In October 2006, she returned to Staten Island, held a series of readings, and began to recruit people for the project. In January 2007, she sent in an application for her work to be considered for the festival.
“Entering the Fringe Festival was something of a whim,” said Siegel. But the whim worked out, and she was informed in May that she would have the opportunity to put it on.
A tale of two states
Siegel said that though she and Brooke shared some similar qualities, the character was not based on her life. The play’s title, she said, has to do with the play’s setting.
“[The play] takes place in the early part of the 21st century. That’s why the last digits were left off,” she said, adding that it was important to distinguish the 21st from the 20th century in the setting.
Siegel said that she wanted viewers to know that the play was definitely set some time in the early 2000, but definitely not in the ’90s.
“It’s a very New York play. Right now in New York is a very different and very dynamic time since the early and the mid-1990s. For that reason it was important to set it in a specific time and not just make it contemporary,” Siegel explained.
She also explained why Brooke lives in the parallel states of fantasy and reality. “When you have been through a trauma you have to be in a foreign place in order to be comfortable at home again,” she said. “It’s very Wizard of Oz,” she added.
And though she has lived halfway around the world, Siegel herself has discovered that there is no place like home.
“I can see myself leaving New York for short periods of time,” she said. “But this is a place I’ll always come back to.”
200 Mystical Fictions, written by Debra L. Siegel, directed by Laura Pestronk, executive produced by Scott Gerber & Courtney Kline, premieres at the International Fringe Theater Festival in New York. For more information go to www.200mysticalfictions.com, or www.fringenyc.org.
Comments on this piece can be sent to mfriedman@hudsonreporter.com