Director: Bill Walters
Playwright: Len Jenkin
Institution: The University of New Mexico, College of Fine Arts, USA
Venue: Experimental Theatre
Time: 14:30, May 20, 2012
Event: The 2nd Asian Theatre Schools Festival
Director’s Notes
Len Jenkin's plays tell wonderful, complex tales which often consist of a journey. They can travel across time and space, and as much ground as they travel physically, they also take us on an interior journey: a trek into the mind, the heart, and the soul; into memory and into the imagination.
Port Twilight is a web of related stories: the story of the Scientists and the atomic bomb testing; the story of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence; the story of the Rabbi, his Servant, and his daughter; the story of Daniel, Juliette and the making of the futuristic movie.
These four main tales weave and intersect. They are held together by Dack and Donna: characters who serve as our guides through the night and the city.
Port Twilight is also a journey across style and genre. References are from science fiction, film noir, comics, and musicals, making it a challenging and delightful trip for the actors as well as the audience.
At the centre of it all are love stories. The three couples whose lives intersect during the making of the film about the future have a very Chekhovian existence. They speculate on the future and where their lives may take they are in the midst of undertaking a project that may or may not ever be realized. In the meantime, they drink, talk, philosophize, and fall in love.
A "port" is a transitional place, a doorway, a space between worlds. "Twilight" is a time of change, between day and night. Port Twilight is a journey in both space and time: into the back alleys and abandoned buildings of the city and into the hidden corners of fear, desperation, hope, and redemption.
Fasten your seatbelts and enjoy the ride!
Synopsis
In the dark and desperate city of Port Twilight, a group of SCIENTISTS appear. They resemble the physicists who gathered in1945 to create the atomic bomb. They're waiting...
Dack and Donna appear. They will be our guides as we travel through Port Twilight. They are performers, but have taken jobs at the "Off Planet Message Exchange." Its mission is to listen for a message from alien beings.
The Rabbi appears. With him is his SERVANT. The Servant is in love with the Rabbi's Daughter. The Rabbi is planning to use religious magic to call forth Moshiach (the Messiah) to cleanse the world and save his Daughter from her dissolute life.
At the Port Twilight Motel, Daniel Milton, a molecular biochemist, has just quit his job at a research laboratory. He took with him dangerous viruses the lab had been producing. He believes he did the right thing but now is very likely being pursued by the authorities. He is helped by his young neighbour, Juliette.
Daniel gets a call from Marty Schott, a friend who is a movie director. Marty and his wife Kimmie are making a futuristic film. Marty asks Daniel to help as a scientific consultant.
Its night in Port Twilight. These stories will weave and intersect and before dawn many things will take place. Marty and his crew struggle to make the movie. Dack and Donna make contact with aliens. There are speculations on philosophy, religion, and science. New love is found and old love is rekindled. The Rabbi brings forth Moshiach and unleashes terrible dangers on the world. Yet new hope is found in the ongoing search for answers and the ability to enjoy ourselves along the way.
Running Time: 90 minutes