A Routine Procedure

6/24/14

Rehearsal of Deborah Dashow Ruth’s A Routine Procedure, which is

COMING SOON: Flight Deck July 2, 7:00.

Staged readings include only the simplest of props, if any at all.  Chairs, music stands, perhaps a few hand-held items.  The illusion of the stage is of critical importance.  One may think of Marshall McLuhan’s distinction between hot and cold media, where “cold” media, offering sparse sensory input, require more participation of the audience. 

In the case of A Routine Procedure, we imagine an operating room where a dilation and curettage are being performed (the “routine procedure”); then, later, we find ourselves in a gallery exhibit of award winning photography.   The space between the actors on stage and the audience in their rowed seats is reduced to the circumference of a Mont Blanc pen, the diameter of a Vicodin pill, the width of a suture.

Ruth’s text in A Routine Procedure gives us language rich with images to work from.  And these images, along with the developing tensions among the principal characters, lead us steadily toward the central dilemmas and questions of the play. 

Among the questions:  What is the meaning of a woman’s fate when it has been determined by someone else?

Looking for a lively post-performance discussion!

Photos:  Upper (fm left):  Cary Cronholm Rose, Stacy Ross, Deborah Dashow Ruth

Bottom:  (fm left): Stacy Ross, Cary Cronholm Rose, Susan Wansewicz