Directed by NINA GOODHEART
Written by SOPHIE MCINTOSH
PRODUCED by GOOD APPLES COLLECTIVE and esmé maria ng
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CREATIVE TEAM
Scenic & PROPS Designer EVAN JOHNSON
Costume Designer SAAWAN TIWARI
Lighting Designer PAIGE SEBER
Sound Designer MAX VAN
HARP COMPOSER MARIA SHAUGHNESSY
movement director willow funkhouser
Stage Manager CORI DIAZ
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CAST
Mary camille umoff
Howard Juan Arturo
gladys jen anaya
doctor/Greg benjamin Milliken
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SUMMARY
Mary is an expectant mother. Mary gives birth to a rabbit. Mary must adjust her expectations. A piercing fable about the wonder and brutality of motherhood, cunnicularii interrogates the crushing pressure new parents face and questions how much of ourselves we can truly give to our offspring.
More info HERE
SYSTEM SETUP & DESIGN CONCEPT
With the help of Mellie Way, I acquired d&b E4s and an amp rack for an L/R system for the alley-style audience seating banks.
After the first script read, I knew what elements to play with and add to my sound palette. The emotional qualities include dreamy, nostalgic, surreal, and intense at times, but soft as the family adapts to their circumstances. I used the environmental ambiance to swell, ebb, and flow with the story moments. Additionally, I also used lullabies composed by Maria Shaughnessy as tools to play with. Simple methods like reversing, and adding in effects, build towards the emotional journey.
The story progresses from Mary's excitement of motherhood to the shock of childbirth, to disappointment and frustration of not receiving what she had expected, to hating her body and its creation, to eventually learning how to let it go.
The sound design supports that arc in two ways. Firstly, the abundance of the outside natural world slowly expands. By the end, the audience is engulfed in the natural world, as much as Mary and Howard are. Secondly, by distinguishing between the hospital and their home where Mary spent much time struggling with motherhood, I built Mary's dream world as a combination of the two in addition to her childhood memories.
SOUND DESIGN HIGHLIGHTS
FOR A BETTER EXPERIENCE, LISTEN WITH HEADPHONES*
TOP OF SHOW | OPENING SEQUENCE
Adding to the opening music by Maria Shaughnessy, I combined it with a dreamy world of freeing footsteps and expecting motherhood. The elements are inspired by Mary's memories of playing in the tall grassy lawns, dry winds passing her by, and ultrasounds of the baby she has long anticipated.
This accompanies Paige Seber's enchanting light ballet movement.
CONTRACTIONS |TO BIRTHING SEQUENCE|TO AFTER BIRTH
Music by Maria Shaughnessy, I used nagging elements to create an uneasy environment – representative of what Mary is going through at birthing. Reversing music pieces and adding pulsing bassy lows added more texture to the tense moment, foreshadowing birthing unexpected results.
MARY'S PAINFUL OBGYN EXAMINATION |TO HER STAGGERING HOME
Music by Maria Shaughnessy, I added restless sound elements, scoring Mary's painful experience, both mentally and physically. The ringing reverb effect echos the residual sting of birth and physical torments.
MARY'S NIGHTMARE |TO EMPTY VOID
Music by Maria Shaughnessy, I added an unsettling young girl's laughing and running as Mary is physically running around the space looking for her mother, screaming for her. The moment builds until she collapses, after which the world resets. Mary is lying on the floor as the grassy wind blows in a rising void, while Mary tries to connect with her daughter for the last time.
PERFORMANCE PHOTOS
PHOTOS TAKEN BY NINA GOODHEART
PRODUCTION REVIEW
“Sophie McIntosh's cunnicularii at Good Apples Collective is a sly, shoestring-budget cabinet-of-wonders: a woman (Camille Umoff) gives birth to a rabbit, and no one seems to blink. (No one blinks at the way she's bleeding, either.) Nina Goodheart's production happens in a space not much larger than a glassed-in porch, but Umoff's precisely calibrated trembling — the sheen of one tear in each eye, the way she blinks at her doctor's rudeness — is seamlessly naturalistic, even from only a foot or so away. Umoff's straight-woman response to the nonsense around her (Juan Arturo is her goofy husband, Benjamin Milliken is the doctor and a lawnmower-obsessed neighbor) unlocks both cunnicularii's humor and its swift pathos. (She also looks like a Dante Gabriel Rossetti painting.) cunnicularii isn't some 1:1 parable about postpartum depression; it's a humanist mystery in the absurdist tradition. The play shows a real person making her way through a bizarre environment, a world "out of harmony" that feels familiar without seeming real.”
“cunnicularii, beautifully written by Sophie McIntosh and sensitively directed by Nina Goodheart, is a fantasy that deals with many of the adjustments in attitudes and perspectives encountered by new parents. It is a beautifully realized drama, both funny and serious. If you enjoy good theater, with solid acting, it will be very much worth the effort to see this production. The creative team does an extraordinary job with what is basically a stark, white room. The lighting design by Paige Seber adds definition to the space and beautifully underscores and transforms the scenes, infusing them with an extension of the emotions being expressed. Max Van’s sound design is a solid complement to the lighting, adding to the dramatic impact of the action. The sets and props by Evan Johnson are perfectly attuned to the story’s performance space and critical elements. Saawan Tiwari’s costume design rounds out the definition of the characters with a minimum of changes.”
