Oldest Story in the World
The ensemble in Oldest Story in the World.
2010
Role: Director and Creator
By Kira Obolensky
With Theatre Novi Most at the Southern Theatre in Minneapolis
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Billy Mullaney, Erik Hoover, Julianna Drajko, Vanessa Voskuil, Stephen Pearce, Barbra Berlovitz, Dario Tangleson, Vladimir Rovinksy, Jeanne Wilkoxin, Sasha Gibbs, Johanna Gorman-Baer, and Molly Dworsky
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Sound design: Vincent Olivieri
Lighting: Rob Perry
Costumes: Annie Katsura Rollins
Set: Andrian Jones
Choregraphy: Gulgun Kayim, Lisa Channer, Carl Flink
Media: Dan Vatsky
Stage Manager: Deb Ervin
Novi Most’s adaptation of the Epic of Gilgamesh is both a reliving of the great story of Gilgamesh and an examination of human limits as we experience them here and now. At the center of the story are essential questions of how to define, and live, a human life.
Our Gilgamesh “drops in” on contemporary wall street in crisis, the sexually charged relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu in ancient Uruk, the Sumerian underworld (containing mythic beasts, rivers of death and the worlds first bar tender), the study of Victorian archaeologist George Smith who first transcribed Gilgamesh and the contemporary world of oil spills, military incursions, floods and droughts where we live out the themes of this ancient epic, subconsciously and daily… A fusion of original music and invigorating physical theatre, this project resurrects a long ago “time before time” letting it pulse and live in front of us, reminding us of truths about ourselves we’ve perhaps forgotten.
“Best of 2010/11 Minnesota Playlist”
“As the first production I saw here, I am forever spoiled in this deflowering by Lisa Channer…It’s poetic athleticism, muscular physical approach, and balls-to-the-wall Kushnerian depth and weight had me completely unstuck in time for its entire 90 minutes.”
“Something brilliant and bewitching”
“An ecstatic combo-platter of history-spanning storytelling”