There are productions that ask to be understood, and there are productions that alter the conditions under which understanding takes place. “Ashes” is one of the latter.
Presented by the University of New Mexico Department of Theatre and Dance, “Ashes,” directed by professor Alejandro Tomás Rodriguez, ignites an atmosphere where thought itself is slowed, through its repetitions, silences, fractured exchanges, visuals and soundscapes.
Based on Samuel Beckett’s quartet of short plays, the modern production featured an ensemble of actors — Sheldon Blackhorse, Dylan Anthony, Quell Ways, and Olivia Quintana — whose performances sustain its demanding minimalism.
The production draws together four works: “Rough for Theatre I,” in which two disabled-bodied men debate whether one should end his life; “Play,” two women and one man who are trapped in urns recount fragments of a love triangle under an interrogating spotlight; “Come and Go,” which showcases three women briefly exchanging whispered secrets; and “Act Without Words II,” two contrasting characters silently perform repetitive daily routines.
It’s apparent in performance studies that a theatrical act exists only in its duration, and “Ashes” leans fully into that ephemerality.. The result is a theatre that resists passive consumption. “Ashes” provokes through estrangement, as emotional catharsis is withheld and replaced by an invitation to think.
“Play,” in particular, is staggering. The polyphonic architecture, the relentless rhythm of language delivered from figures trapped in urns produces something close to astonishment. Where one leaves off, another takes up the mantle. The dialogue becomes percussive, nearly musical, excellent in its ability in dislocating ordinary listening habits. The production’s discipline is most evident in “Play” as the actors sustain a precision that feels less like performance than endurance.
In the playbill, Rodriguez suggests Beckett gestures toward a world in which “if there was a God, he has left us, and our humanity too.” That absence permeates the production. In “Act Without Words II” bodies are prodded into mechanical routine by a what’s taken to be viewed as unseen force (from the fly loft); in “Rough for Theatre I” dependence and rivalry blur into uneasy symmetry under the constant threat of violence; in “Come and Go” whispered knowledge hovers just beyond comprehension. Across these works, human presence persists and we understand then, should we care to think, that this theater and much like life, meaning remains deferred, fractured, and/or unreachable.
However, the experience is not empty. These performances offer a sense of suffering and unvoiced longing directed toward something like a truer world. Beckett’s theatre, as realized here, stages hope.
“Ashes” will not pedantically tell you what to do, the play asks only that you look, and see what you see.
Nicholas Skaldetvind is a freelance reporter with the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
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