After a quarter-century of performing on Vashon, UMO Ensemble is taking its show on the road to the glittering lights of New York City. But before the company leaves town, it plans to hold a one-evening benefit performance of “Fail Better” on Saturday at the Open Space for Arts & Community.
“Fail Better” is UMO’s love letter to the playwright and poet Samuel Beckett. The group premiered the show earlier this year at the Samuel Beckett Festival at ACT Theater in Seattle. Still, UMO had a mission to take its art out into the world, New York ranked high on its bucket list. So after critical acclaim and a second run at ACT, the ensemble contacted the New York Fringe Festival, a curated event, about performing “Fail Better.” It received an invitation in April to perform in August.
“This is the first time UMO has gone for a show of this caliber and size in 25 years,” said Elizabeth Klob, director of “Fail Better” and UMO’s executive artist. “But we didn’t find out until April, so we need to raise funds to defray travel costs.”
And Klob is not just talking about plane tickets. UMO has the expensive and logistical challenge of shipping the show’s main prop — a 400 pound teeter-totter — across the county along with sundry ropes, pulleys and costumes.
As a physical theater performance company, UMO often uses sculpture — though nothing quite the size of the teeter-totter — along with original movement, vocalization, music, characters, story line and scripts to create their image-rich pieces. For “Fail Better,” the group read all of Beckett’s fiction and nonfiction, a considerable volume of work that was not in play format, to create the new show. They honed the script down to five scenes and then started crafting the piece. That was the easy part. The hard part was getting the green light from Beckett’s estate.
“It was a huge ordeal to get the rights,” Klob said. “It took six months with several no’s. Beckett is one of my favorite writers, and I was not going to take no.”
UMO submitted 62 pages of material that Beckett’s estate whittled down to two paragraphs. Klob said the text now frames the show, appearing at the beginning and again at the end.
Beckett, who was known as a key writer in the Theater of the Absurd movement, heralded a tragicomic outlook on life and human endeavors. Klob said she thinks his writing is so rich that he could write for the everyday man, a scholar, someone who is lovesick or any human condition.
“He deals with the most primal questions but in funny ways — funny if you let it wash over you. We found stuff that is poignant, makes me laugh and cry, which is a rare thing,” Klob said.
In keeping with the company’s credo — seeking the ancient alchemy of live performance, through which thoughts and images under the surface of culture are given voice and form — “Fail Better” seems to succeed well. The Seattle Times said, “UMO Ensemble’s remarkable tribute to (Beckett’s) genius, ‘Fail Better’ is a mesmerizing production, … a visual delight and an intellectual teaser.”
“Fail Better” follows archetypal Beckett characters who tackle love, life and death in what UMO calls Beckett fashion, “with humor, metaphor, stillness and gross indecency to create a visceral experience of Beckett.”
Two of the original co-founders of UMO, David Godsey and Janet McAlpin, will perform “Fail Better” along with ensemble players Maria Glanz, Lyam White and special guest artist Terry Crane, with Elizabeth Klob directing.
When UMO first arrived on Vashon in 1989, most of the members were from the East Coast or Midwest. But they stayed and over the years have raised their families and created art on the island. Klob said she hopes islanders will come to the benefit, adding that for the same price as a ticket at ACT, this event will include food and drinks donated by The Hardware Store Restaurant, and audience members can chat with UMO after the performance.
“If anybody has been curious about UMO, what we do, but hasn’t had the opportunity to see us, this is one of the best performances to see,” Klob said. “It shows everybody’s best. It is a bright star.”
Doors open at 7 p.m. for the 8 p.m. show. Tickets are $30 and are available at brownpapertickets.com and at the door.
