Lights Up On...Rachel Hynes & A Tale of a Tiger

In 2008, when Rachel Hynes left Seattle to become a student in London, Hynes' artistic life seemed to be on a roll. The Helsinki Syndrome, an experimental theater group Hynes created with Mike Pham; the company had created and performed a couple of critically well-received pieces, and was starting to garner attention outside of Seattle for its challenging, experimental and irreverent approach to theatrical conventions.

Then Hynes made the decision to attend the London International School of Performing Arts, where she studied the LeCoq physical clowning discipline under Thomas Prattki, who used the discipline as the basis for generative work. Hynes returned to our shores in 2009 in order to create and perform in Helsinki's The Importance of Being Earnest which only amplified the favorable media attention the duo had received up to that point.

Hynes recently graduated from the intensive program and now returns to the Pacific Northwest with Tale of a Tiger, which she describes as a dark fable about a girl who lives with her father in a remote forest, and who, over the course of the story, slowly becomes a tiger herself.

We spoke to Hynes on Friday, as she was in New York City taking public transportation to make it out to airport. She was planning to be at the terminal already when our phone call arrived, but the heatwave is so oppressive that the trains are running slower than usual to avoid overheating, and the time buffer she had built into her schedule was rapidly disappearing. Our conversation occasionally wanders into the ponderous worry that afflicts us as a hard deadline approaches...

Seattlest: First of all, welcome back to Seattle.

Rachel Hynes: Thanks.

S: Is this a working visit, or are you coming back to town?

RH: I haven't made up my mind yet. My visa expired and I only came back to the USA in February, so I'm exploring how I'll use my degree in a job context, some combination of teaching, performing, directing or programming. I want to stay open to what life and my career path could offer. Getting a degree, you start to become realistic. I mean, I have a degree now, and I want to work in my field; I don't want to settle for a desk job and then do theater on the side...

On the East coast, I could live in DC, and then work in my field in Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York. In Seattle, I could travel down to Portland. And maybe other West coast cities...It's a question of density.

I would love to come back, though! I'm just looking for the right opportunity.

S: Does this mean that The Helsinki Syndrome [Hynes' collaborative and experimental theater company with Seattle's Mike Pham] is dormant?

RH: Actually, Mike and I are starting to develop a new piece -- we're also coming up on our fifth anniversary. So, on Tuesday, I'm doing the show and then we're having people meet up afterwards to celebrate the anniversary and discuss the coming show, start talking about the nature of the collaboration we'll be doing. Mike's also just now graduating with a graphic design degree, so now we're talking about ideal scenarios where he and I could wind up. New York's Incubator Arts Project, where we've performed before, have said that they'd welcome us back any time, so...Again, who knows?

S: Let's talk about Tale of A Tiger. Is it a piece that you developed as part of your school program?

RH: Not really...It wasn't developed at the school. It was just an image that came to me shortly after finishing school, though I do use storytelling techniques that I learned in school. But it just started as this image I had of a girl coming to a river and feeding the tigers. Then the question came up, "what does she feed them?" And I'd say "well, something that's not important to her, but also very important." "Okay, but what does she feed them?" Maybe bits of herself. "Why does she do that?" And as this went on, I started talking with my friends about the story, and they would ask "why does she do that?" And I would make up a little more of the story, like, maybe something bad happened.

And in the process of telling the developing story, it continued evolving and emerging until someone asked "how does it end?"

And then, as I was going through the process of workshopping it, I found myself wondering why it is we do theater; why we derive power from telling each other our stories. And how part of that process is about recognizing parts of ourselves in other people's stories, or if you don't, then becoming aware that there are people in the world that don't work like you, and coming to understand that and those people.

There's something really juicy about the human connection in theater, about the two people in the room. And for me, I tell the story in order to learn the story.

S: Does that mean that the piece is still being developed? Or is the story set?

RH: No, Tiger is there, it's done. But the nature of the work is such that something could always be worked on. In the process of telling the story, the thought will inevitably come that it'd be great if this thing or that thing happened. Then you spend time developing that thread.

S: What's the next project for you?

RH: There's the Helsinki piece, and Tiger will be performed at a small festival in Pennsylvania this fall. I'm also looking for other places to tour with it, I think it has some interesting and resonant themes in play.

Then after that, I'm working on a project with classmates from the London School in Paris, where we'll be exploring the catacombs under the city and talking with this group of people there who have become urban spelunkers of a sort. The group is trying to meet in Paris to do some research; when we develop the other half of the story, we'll go to Argentina.

Then we'll meet in order to put together the research we've accumulated and create a show about trust, freedom and how that relates to small spaces. We'll be using storytelling, circus and dynamic objects, which are a cross between set design elements and props...They're objects that move within the space of the stage that actors could interact with...Then, we're just going to see what happens after that.

A Tale of A Tiger performs tonight and Tuesday at 7:00p.m. // Rendezvouz' Jewelbox Theater, 2322 2nd Avenue // $10