The Passion Project

The action takes place is a small­ish square ‘cell’ where one woman arranges framed can­vasses on hooks and ropes or holds them on the floor or in the air. Projected on these empty rec­tan­gles are scenes from the famous silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc.  Reid Farrington cre­ated this aston­ish­ing and pow­er­ful instal­la­tion by com­bin­ing sev­eral ver­sions of the film (it has quite a his­tory, includ­ing a neg­a­tive destroyed by fire, a new cut made from out-takes, another fire and an orig­i­nal print found in a Norwegian asy­lum), a later sound­track and a con­ver­sa­tion he had with the archivist at the Danish Film Institute while watch­ing some of this rare footage.

Laura K. Nicoll is the per­former. She exe­cutes a com­plex and intensely phys­i­cal chore­og­ra­phy for half an hour,  cre­at­ing an emo­tional expe­ri­ence to rival the film. It is dark and tragic but also ecsta­tic, some­thing like a mar­tyr­dom, I sup­pose. The film is known for its exten­sive use of close-ups and that is what we see on each can­vas — faces arranged in phys­i­cal space as the actual actors might have been. And while oth­ers appear and dis­ap­pear, Renee Falconetti as Joan is ever-present. The audi­ence is free to mill around and watch from every pos­si­ble angle.

If you’re inter­ested in per­for­mance, film his­tory or any­thing that pushes bound­aries, then see this show. The Passion Project is at the Pacific Theatre until February 6^th. And if you have the chance go see the whole film with a new mostly com­posed but partly impro­vised score and a vocal text at Christ Church Cathedral on Jan 28^th.