‘Instructions for a Séance’ @ Amphibian Stage
—Jan Farrington
“I am large, I contain multitudes.”
Playwright and performer Katie Bender comes to Amphibian Stage with enough edgy, playful, truthful, and heart-pummeling material to prove Walt Whitman’s quote five times over.
Especially if you’re a woman.
Instructions for a Séance, created by Bender and directed by Lily Wolff, wasn’t at all what I expected walking into the theater space—set up with a vintage-style stage and up-front cabaret tables for some of the audience (with the rest of us behind and around them).
An old leather wing chair takes center stage—a seat for the summoner of spirits, the keeper of magic? We don’t even try to predict, even as Bender rushes in with tote bags, satchel, and apologies for running late. Kids, you know, and traffic, and a quick trip to “the Metaphysical Shoppe on Lancaster” for a stick of sage. Her harrassed-mom persona is quirky and endearing…but what does it have to do with séances and Harry Houdini? We’ll see.
The world-famous escape artist, illusionist, magician and supernaturalist (not to mention pin-up idol) of the early 20th century kept America on the edge of its seat—and life-changing escapes like his, it seems, are the focus of Bender’s dive into the occult, trying to summon Houdini into the theater. He escaped his life as poor Hungarian immigrant Eric Weisz, and was transformed. Whatever that thing he had—well, Bender wants some of that, for her and for us.
But what’s she escaping from, or going to? Bender includes us in the preparations for the séance, asks us questions: what in our own lives makes us feel burdened, fenced in, joyless? Do we need a way out…or only time off for good behavior? How would escape/freedom change us? We don’t know if Harry will show up, but empathize with Bender’s wry comparison of Houdini’s stupendous ego, his go-for-broke, free-wheeling ways—and her life as wife and mother, spending her limited, precious writing time “tidying” the house, her own priorities forever at the end of a list of to-do’s.
Bender notes that the “creative impulse” itself is a desire to be free from daily reality. Making theater is part of that impulse, and so she makes it—pulling bells and sage, lamps (?), clothing and handcuffs from her baggage. She summons Houdini in a powerfully delivered and poetical “invocation” to the spirits of our world. Audience members are given charge of artifacts, and a puckish spirit definitely inhabited the theater on opening night: as we listened for a tiny bell to indicate a spirit connection, we heard a tinkling carillon of notes. It was a cell phone out in the audience.
And by then, we’re all feeling like friends. We’re drawn to the woman onstage, who enters as someone scattered and hesitant—and grows before our eyes into a vital creature, moving swiftly among personae, claiming the space, circling back to tell us proudly what she’s good at “that no one pays me for.” Making breakfast, writing plays (well, sometimes for money), traveling alone, diving into new situations, and much more. Triumphs small and large, found worthy of her pride—even if it feels a bit rueful.
Bender’s fast-talking, live-wire performance holds our attention. Director Wolff sets a pace that keeps energy flowing, and the play’s surprising twists and transformations are accompanied by excellent music/sound and light from David Lanza and Paige Seber. Brett Schneider is the show’s magic consultant, and the atmospheric set was created by Jeff Stanfield.
Women are good at transformations, Bender notes—at living at the edges and in-betweens and cross-overs of life: wife, vamp, mother, free spirit, home maker, artist. (A side note: Instructions for a Séance plays very well with another production only blocks away in downtown Fort Worth: Circle Theatre’s Artemisia, recounting the troubles and triumphs of the most famous woman artist of the Italian Renaissance, Artemisia Gentileschi.)
And what about that home-brewed séance? It certainly gets the blood flowing, fuels our curiosity, holds us in a high state of what’s-gonna-happen. Though maybe, says Bender, the power to change—and the magic we’re looking for—doesn’t really need the extraordinary. It’s closer to us than we think.
WHEN: February 2-11, 2024
WHERE: Amphibian Stage, 120 S. Main Street, Fort Worth
WEB: amphibianstage.com
