Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
Live theater, you may have heard, is shut down.
School, whether in person or online, is a nightmare.
But what if there were a way, in quarantine, to have both at once?
Its a model for intergenerational creativity, which itself cracks open issues of teaching, listening, and adaptation.
When you see Domingo, chances are that youll recognize him.
Pena suggested that the group work on a project.
I dont really want to do a project right now, said Domingo, already planning.
We talked a lot about the relevance to what we are going through now.
For me,Oedipus, its so heavy.
(At this point in the call, Connor floated quietly out of the Zoom.)
Tamburri gave Domingo certain prompts, sometimes simply to film certain objects in the house.
(Someproductions ofAntigonetalk about this resonance;Sophocles in Staten Islandhas Autumn dance about it.)
Barall has an 11-year-old daughter says, Everything was fuzzy in the spring; all the lines disappeared.
We struggled to get through fifth grade.
We barely made it.
So I think its just part of my DNA.
Now it was like, What is it?
Whatre we actually doing?
Theres this mystery of how it is that people learn things.
You know, how do you teach a child?
After that tough fifth grade semester, it looked … fun?
It was inspiring to us as a household that you could make something together collaboratively, says Barall.
And that certainly wasnt kind of how education was working in our house!
And I thought that was actually a really exciting and interesting thing about the process.
I actually felt like we were trying to create something that was in the same vein, he says.
But if you take the Greeks head on, it can get a little dry and pedantic.
Suddenly, learning started flowing the other way.
I was watching these influencers that my kids were telling me about, like Emma Chamberlain, says Rno.
For their part, the younger generation was both learning and taking control.
It was such an organic, wonderful creative experience, says Domingo.
The collaboration is what I missed the most from performing.
Being with a community of artists working together.
And everyone learned something from the plays.
Rno talks about the original Greek productions, which were, he notes, communal events.
They were a way to feel less alone in a very challenging world.
So I felt like, in a weird way, we captured a flavor of that.
(Jon Burklund was the video producer; much is also due to Fabian Obispos compositions.)
But its as a prompt for intergenerational learning that I think might prove its greatest influence.
The creative team itself reinvents the hierarchy that Sophocles questions so keenly.
Oedipus doesnt listen; Creon, his successor, isnt much better.
But the younger generation is there, offering suggestions, holding the camera, showing the way.
