Southern Rep Theatre to premiere play in response to Katrina flood

New Orleans CityBusiness, Mar 10, 2007 by CityBusiness Staff Report

Loyola University New Orleans professor, playwright and author John Biguenet's play "Rising Water" premieres at Southern Rep Theatre at Canal Place this month. The production will run March 14 through April 8, with performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays at and 3 p.m. Sundays.

In "Rising Water," a couple awakens in the middle of the night to find their pitch-dark house filling with water and rush to the attic. Trapped with a lifetime of possessions and memories, they wait for rescue, speculating over what has happened and exploring their relationship, assailed by a flood of secrets and feelings.

Prior to the play's world premiere at Southern Rep, "Rising Water" won the the 2006 National New Play Network Commission Award, was a 2006 National Showcase of New Plays selection and was a 2007 recipient of an Access to Artistic Excellence development and production grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Biguenet is the Robert Hunter Distinguished Professor at Loyola, where he has received the university's Dux Academicus award for outstanding teaching, scholarship and service.

He began "Rising Water" in March 2006 as an expansion of a column he wrote for The New York Times titled "How They Died." Surprised at the number of deaths from drowning, dehydration and exhaustion, Biguenet began to explore how individuals were trapped by the levee failures and what it was like for people who were awakened in the night by rising water, rushed to attics and roofs and then waited for help that never came.

Biguenet's research for the play prompted him to learn the science behind

what had happened from Dr. Bob Thomas, Loyola's chair in Environmental Communications. He also collected anecdotes from survivors.

"Early versions of the play were angry," Biguenet said.

Eventually, Biguenet achieved some emotional distance by casting the play in blank verse. The unrhymed iambic pentameter allowed him to go more deeply into the subject. And the deeper he went into it, the more local and specific it became.

That is why Biguenet feels that if the play is to travel outside of New Orleans, it would have to be rewritten.

"I take for granted that the audience knows the city and its traditions," he said of his work. But when asked what he sees for the future of the play, Biguenet is more concerned about making sure New Orleans residents feel it is an accurate portrayal of what happened.

"Rising Water is a play by a New Orleanian for New Orleanians," Biguenet said. "This is only one story out of thousands from that terrible week after the levees collapsed."

Biguenet's books include "Oyster, a novel," and "The Torturer's Apprentice: Stories." His stage play "The Vulgar Soul," was presented in the 2004 Festival of New Southern Plays and was part of the 2004-2005 season of Southern Rep. His work has received an O. Henry Award and a Harper's Magazine Writing Award, among other distinctions. He is currently working on a novel set in the 1950s about the integration of New Orleans.

In comparison to his other work, Biguenet said, "It's difficult to find an appropriate form to tell the story of a catastrophe on this scale."

He worked closely with Southern Rep's Producing Artistic Director Ryan Rilette, attending rehearsals and continuing to modify the script. The most recent incarnation of the play is only a few days old.

"Rising Water" stars Danny Bowen and Cristine McMurdo-Wallis. It is the first of two plays Southern Rep commissioned in response to Hurricane Katrina, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and BellSouth. The second of those plays, "The Breach," by Catherine Filloux, Tarell McCraney and Joe Sutton, will be staged at Southern Rep in

September.

Tickets for "Rising Water" are $15-$30. Call 522-6545, visit the Southern Rep box office on the third floor of The Shops at Canal Place on performance days or go to www.southernrep.com.